Our emphasis on culture speaks to several overlapping areas of research into the sociocultural and contextual underpinnings of media texts and practices. Anthropological understandings of culture as everyday practices are strongly reflected in the work of this group, linked to urban locales, communities, consumption and cultural identity, ordinary affects and everyday aesthetics, material cultures, gaming and play. We also specialise in visual culture, with our expertise in visual anthropology, ethnographic and documentary film, and histories and theories of photography with a strong focus on mass and vernacular photography as well as on visual art.
Secondly, space is a central area of research bridging interests in cities and urban landscapes, place-making and the habitus of place, translocal and transnational geographies, spatial anthropology and spatial humanities, mapping cultures and digital mapping, as well as work that explores the proliferation of digital spaces and virtual environments, encompassing developments in the visual arts, locative media, psychogeography and deep mapping, transmediality and affect.
Memory is a key area of interest for us: our research addresses debates in postmemory, digital memories of disappearance (with a particular focus on Latin America), critical heritage, museum studies, archival practices, memory work in post-communist arenas (with a focus on Eastern Europe), landscape and memory and everyday, non-commemorative sites, objects and processes of remembrance.
Synthesising the various theoretical and thematic interests cited above, some of our key research interests include:
- Photography and visual culture
- Spatial anthropology and place-making
- Urban cultural studies
- Everyday life
- Games and material cultures of play
- Social and cultural memory
- Audio-visual, sensory and experimental/artistic methodologies
- Affect, aesthetics and materiality
- Trans/interdisciplinary and mixed-methods approaches
- Posthumanism and cultural/critical theory
- Museums and archives
- Latin American cultural studies
Members of the Culture, Space & Memory research group currently include:
- Dr. Jordana Blejmar
- Prof. Peter Buse
- Dr. Emma Fraser (from January 2025)
- Dr. Alyssa Grossman
- Prof. Michelle Henning
- Dr. Wallis Motta
- Dr. Les Roberts (Group Leader)