Associate ProfessorRose Butler

I am an Associate Professor in Sociology who specialises in class, migration and inequality through the lens of relationships and family life. I currently have three primary fields of research that connect with this theme:

• Forming and sustaining relationships across class difference. I am presently studying how cross-class friendships are negotiated and their implications for social inequality in Australia and the UK (with Sam Friedman). My latest book, Love Across Class (with Eve Vincent), examines the tension, pain, humour and joy that come with upholding and negotiating an intimate relationship across class in Australia.
• How class travels across regional and national borders to shape migration trajectories and social inequalities. In collaboration with Sylvia Ang and Christina Ho, I recently published a new special issue on this theme in Class and Migration: Interrogating Class Across Borders with the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies.
• Rural migration and the building of more equitable futures for young people and families in rural Australia. Over the past 15 years I have worked with different community groups in rural Victoria on this topic. Most recently, I completed a project with Makiko Nishitani on enabling alternative career pathways for rural young people (funded by the Scanlon Foundation).