Ashley lectures in the sociology of health, mental health and illness, social problems, social movements, and in the economics of social policy. Her research explores the rising importance attributed emotions and behaviour in an era of ‘no alternative’ to capitalism. She is particularly interested in ‘vulnerable’ constructions of human subjects in the rhetoric of new social problems. She is the author of Semiotics of Happiness: rhetorical beginnings of a public problem published by Bloomsbury Academic in 2015 and the forthcoming Semiotics of Emotion (2017) which explores rising claims about emotional damage in public debate and social movement campaigns.