Dr Claire Davey is a researcher of women’s alcohol (non-) consumption and online recovery modalities, particularly women's use of online sobriety communities. Claire was awarded her PhD from Canterbury Christ Church University in 2024 and was a recipient of their University Research Scholarship. Her research has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including Frontiers in Global Women's Health, Drug and Alcohol Review and Journal of International Women's Studies. In 2023, Claire won the Feminist Studies Association's Student Essay Prize. She is currently writing a book titled Sober Sisterhood: Women’s Recovery Culture within Online Sobriety Communities, based on her PhD research.

Published works

Forthcoming:

Davey C and Gooch M (2025) “I always joke that I became a bit of a prude”: Exploring the contemporary context and young women’s lived experiences of sober dating in the UK from sociological, (auto-)ethnographic, insider research. In D. Conroy and F. Measham (Eds.), Young Adult Drinking Styles, 2nd Edition. Springer.

Blackman S and Davey C (2025) “Iron Cage of Moral Panics: from moral micro to moral macro panics”. Research Handbook on the Sociology of Leisure. Edward Elgar Publishing.

2023:

Davey C (2023) ‘“It’s kind of like weaning. I had to wean myself off of wine”: Navigating no- and low-alcohol drinks as potential harm reduction tools and relapse triggers by women in recovery in the UK’. Drug and Alcohol Review. Available here.

Davey C (2023) ‘“Pushing an addictive drug as a solution onto a vulnerable highly stressed group of people”: sober women’s feminist resistance against the feminised marketing of alcohol and cultural representations of women’s drinking practices’. Available here.

2022:

Davey, C (2022) ‘Patterns of consumption at the UK’s first ‘alcohol-free off-licence’: who engaged with no- and low-alcohol drinks and why?’. European Journal of Food, Drink and Society, Vol 2(1). Available here.

Davey, C (2022) ‘Goodbye mindless drinking and hello mindful living’: A feminist analysis of women’s sobriety as a practice of self-care. Cultivate, Issue 4. Available here.

Davey C (2022) Review of the book Bad Girls, Dirty Bodies: Sex, Performance and Safe Femininity. By Gemma Commane. London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020, 239 pp, £85.00, ISBN: 9781788311267. Sexualities. Winter 2021. Available here.

2021:

Davey C (2021) ‘Alternative, online treatment paths for women’s problematic alcohol use: a review of existing qualitative and quantitative research’. Frontiers in Global Women’s Health. Available here.

Davey C (2021) ‘Escaping redundancy: Constance Maynard’s travels and her challenge to Victorian femininity’. Women’s History Today, Volume 3, Issue 1 (Summer 2021). Available here.

In the media

Club Soda (2022) ‘Pop-up Shop Impact Report’, July 2022. Available here.

"‘Chic online clubs are drawing millennials and Gen X'ers who want 'freedom from wine o clock' without labeling themselves alcoholics — but unlike AA, most aren't free’, Insider, June 2022. Available here.

‘How Dry January's continued presence reflects society's evolving -- and divisive -- relationship with alcohol’, CNN, January 2022. Available here.