Joy Zhang

It was a great pleasure to be on the judging panel with Dr Ala Sirriyeh at Lancaster and Prof Ian Tucker at University of East London for this year’s SAGE Innovation/Excellence Prize for the journal, Sociology. It was not easy to decide on a winner as all shortlisted papers were exceptional in their own ways – many congratulations to all the nominees! But we all agreed to this year’s prize should be given to Professor Christine Hine’s paper. Here is our joint statement on the award:

Hine’s highly innovative and thought-provoking paper demonstrates how autoethnography offers a route into exploring the nuanced meaning of silence and widens methodological avenues to study emerging techno-social contexts for future research. As an engaging piece of autoethnographic writing, its analytical focus on silence will also be of interest and value to researchers working within the broader discipline of sociology.