Place, Space and Belonging
The Place, Space and Belonging research group consists of Languages Cultures and Film staff and Postgraduate students who work on constructions of identities and the interconnections amongst linguistic, cultural, visual and spatio-temporal processes of identification.
The members of the group engage with interdisciplinary research areas, questioning the present and the future of the Humanities from a language-sensitive perspective. Providing a platform for research in Languages Cultures and Film and cognate fields, the group aims to benefit from, and contribute to, the development of the Humanities in the 21st century across traditional scholarly fields.
Research themes and projects
Identity as work-in-progress escapes the rigid boundaries of exclusionary practices as they are promoted by national and institutional agencies. The groups’ work is therefore critical of the meaning assigned to the term boundaries so that perspectives highlighting the trans- dimension of participation and belonging are privileged.
Language (in all its verbal forms, including literature) is always central to constructions of identity in so far as it is the primary means of articulating meaning. However, verbal language is one possible form of semiosis (i.e. meaning making via the use of signs), and in order to understand the complexity of the human experience other semiotic systems need to be taken into account. As a result, spatial and visual semiosis is also explored via the work of the research group.
Current members
University of Liverpool Staff
- Nicola Bermingham
- Robert Blackwood
- Charles Forsdick
- Lyn Marven
- Gorka Mercero
- Alison Smith
- Barbara Spadaro
- Stefania Tufi.
Postgraduate Students
- Eithar Alsallum
- Lida Amiri
- Imene Bensalem
- Giuseppa Coppola
- Jasem Eidan
- Susie Gordon
- Jessica Iubini-Hampton
- Sijing Lu
- Siwen Lu
- Jemima Paine
- Juliano Saccomani.