Dr Alexander Hensby

Dr Alexander Hensby is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Kent. He is the school’s co-director for Research & Innovation, as well as co-director for the Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements. 

Alex joined the University of Kent in 2014. He completed his first degree in sociology at the University of York, followed by an MPhil at the University of Cambridge. Alex taught sociology at Cambridge and Roehampton universities for four years before moving to the University of Edinburgh, where he received his PhD in 2014. 

Alex’s principal research and teaching interests include social movements, civic engagement, sociological theory, race and ethnicity, and global social change. His most recent book, Race, Capital, and Equity in Higher Education (2024, with Barbara Adewumi) is Open Access, and explores the sociological factors that contribute to ethnicity degree awarding gaps in UK higher education. Alex is also the author of Participation and Non-Participation in Student Activism (2017), and Theorizing Global Studies (2011, with Darren J. O’Byrne). He is currently co-authoring a fully updated fourth edition of Introducing Social Theory for Polity Press, due in 2027. 

Alex has written for, and been interviewed by, a number of national and international news outlets including NBC, BBC, Wired, Times Higher Education, The Conversation, Marianne, and the i Paper. 

Alex’s research focuses on the overlapping relationship between social movements, identity, and social justice, with particular interests in the paths and barriers to political participation and educational attainment. He has been most recently engaged with the following projects:  

• A New Democratic (Dis)Order: Race, Identity, and Political Mobilisation in France and the UK, c.1970-Present (funded by the British Academy Knowledge Frontiers Scheme; PI Emile Chabal, University of Edinburgh) 

Identity has become one of the most powerful mobilising forces in contemporary democratic politics. Since the 1970s, social movements based around race, gender, religion, language or sexuality have challenged traditional political structures and undermined the legitimacy of broad-based political parties. By stepping back from the polemic and seeking to historicise identity politics, this project provides the basis for a better understanding of the power of identity in contemporary European politics. It does so by looking at various forms of claims-making by racialised communities in France and the UK, including race-based mobilisation and the opposition to it. The aim is to explore how identity politics has reshaped democracy in two diverse European societies. 

This project has produced a workshop hosted at the Scuola Normale Superiore, Florence, in October 2025, with corresponding publications to follow. 

• Shaping the Past, Building the Future: Museums, Storytelling, and the Politics of Representation in the United States (2021-2024; funded by Westminster Smithsonian Partnership Development Fund & LSSJ Investment in Research Fund; PIs Alexander Hensby and Lucy Bond, University of Westminster) 

For people of colour campaigning for racial equity in the post-Civil rights era, heritage practice – encompassing museums, exhibitions and tours, interpretive centres, and memorials – has become a key site of struggle for recognition and restitution. This project maps the contemporary dynamics of contemporary heritage activism through a series of case studies located in the Deep South and Washington DC. Attention is paid to how each case negotiates the need for democratic accountability from the local community, their sensitivity and adaptability to broader contention cycles, and their model for seeking social change. 

This project has produced a public event in April 2025, drawing together museum professionals from Washington DC and London; and a journal article published in Memory Studies in 2025. 

Dr Hensby convenes the following undergraduate modules:  

• Sociological Theory: The Classics – SOCI4119 

• Globalisation & Development – SOCI5016 

• Protest, Activism & Social Change – SOCI6197 

Dr Hensby welcomes prospective PhD candidates with interests in any of the following topics: social movements, civic engagement, political participation, and student protest. Recent or ongoing PhD students include:  

• Ceylan Gülnaz Quirino-Hassan (2025-), Rooted Resistance - how eco-cultural communities negotiate and resist epistemic loss. Funded by ESRC/SEDarc Consortium. 

• Amelia Barnes (2021-) A Participatory Approach to Exploring Women’s Rights Activism in Post-Revolutionary Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Funded by the Gulbenkian Foundation. 

• Georgina Treloar (2019-24) Extinction Rebellion in the frame: An analysis of XR’s nascent mobilisation from the social movement framing perspective. 

Dr Hensby is commissioning editor for the journal Social Movement Studies, having previously served two terms on the editorial board for Sociology. He is also a fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a member of the British Sociological Association.