Karen O′Reilly is Professor of Sociology at Loughborough University. She has taught ethnographic and qualitative methods for many years around the world including the Essex Summer School in Social Science Data Collection and Analysis, and the Swiss Summer School in Lugano. She has spent 20 years on and off living among and learning from British people who move abroad in search of a better way of life. Sociologically, this has informed an interest in a broad range of themes, including ethnicity, identity and community; nations and nationalism; home and belonging; social exclusion; the informal economy; tourism-related migration; and friends and networks. Her interests have more recently turned to practice theories and their implications for ethnographic methodology. Karen is author of Ethnographic Methods (Routledge), Key Concepts in Ethnography (SAGE) and International Migration and Social Theory (Palgrave Macmillan), and co-editor of Lifestyle Migration: Expectations, Aspirations and Experiences (Ashgate).
