King's College London

Dr Billy Holzberg, who is an academic within the School of Education, Communication and Society at King’s College London, has been shortlisted for the British Sociological Association (BSA) Philip Abrams Memorial Prize, for best sole-authored book in sociology.

The book conceptualises the affective dimension of bordering practices by uncovering how emotions like anger, fear and hope work to reproduce and contest racialised distinctions between citizen and migrant in political and media discourse.

Dr Holzberg challenges the assumption that positive emotions like compassion necessarily work as a counter to negative emotions like anger or fear and discusses the concept of the racial grammars of deservingness that shape border governance today. The book’s combination of queer-feminist theory with migration studies makes it essential literature in understanding the nuances of migration control today. 

The book was launched at an event at King's College London in January, and created valuable discussion into the way we see borders and how we treat those affected and effected by them.

The other shortlisted books include: The Politics of Intersectional Practice: Representation, Coalition and Solidarity in UK NGOS by Ashlee Christoffersen; The sound of difference: race, class and the politics of ‘diversity’ in classical music by Kristina Kolbe; Embodying Irish Abortion Reform: Bodies, Emotions, and Feminist Activism by Aiden O’Shaughnessy and Distancing the Past: Racism as History in South African Schools by Chana Teeger.

The winner of the prize will be announced on 24 April 2025.