Degrees and Honours
PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. BA (Honours) and MA at the University of Alberta, in Canada.
Profile and Research Interests
Niamh is an economic sociologist, working in the critical tradition of political economy. Her focus is on finance-led economic growth, and the financialisation of household income, as savings and income are channelled into capital markets through personal investment and debt.
Her doctoral research considered the rise of the “financial subject”, or the “everyday entrepreneur”, in the context of widening economic inequality in the United Kingdom since the 1980s. Risk-taking is rationalised as an opportunity for greater reward: Savings are linked to market performance through investment in private pensions, unit trusts, bonds or assets such as property, while debt, when responsibly managed, can be used to ameliorate short-term periods of uncertainty. Household finance has acquired a more entrepreneurial character as a result, but this is difficult to manage for those facing problems of low income, precarious or short-term employment prospects, and with little wealth, savings, or assets to rely on. The problem of “financial exclusion”, when individuals and households struggle to access necessary financial services or make use of them within their means, therefore deepens inequality and creates new forms of precariousness.
Publications (selected):
"Class and Inequality in the Time of Finance". Routledge 2021. https://www.routledge.com/Class-and-Inequality-in-the-Time-of-Finance-Subject-to-Terms-and-Conditions/Mulcahy/p/book/9780367530990
“Is the social study of finance necessarily nominalist? Using realism to address critical shortcomings”. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. https://doi.org/10.1111/jtsb.12278
“Shaping entrepreneurial subjects: How structural changes and institutional fixes shape financial strategies in daily life”. Thesis Eleven 142:1 (2017), 5 – 17.
“Workers-as-consumers: Rethinking the political economy of consumption and capital reproduction”. Capital and Class 41:2 (2017), 315 – 332.
“Entrepreneurial subjectivity and the political economy of daily life in the time of finance”. European Journal of Social Theory 20:2 (2017), 216 – 235.
“Narrating developmental disability: Researchers, advocates, and the creation of an interview space in the context of university-community partnerships”. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 11:2 (2012), 165 – 179.
