![Katherine Quinn](https://profiles-cardiff.imgix.net/attachments/3206?w=200&h=200&auto=format&crop=faces&fit=crop&q=90")
Dr Katherine Quinn
Lecturer
- QuinnK2@cardiff.ac.uk
- Glamorgan Building, Room 1.02, King Edward VII Avenue, Cardiff, CF10 3WA
Overview
I was appointed as a lecturer in social science in February 2022 having previously joined Cardiff in late 2020 as a post-doctoral research fellow in the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research and Data (WISERD).
Using ethnographic methods, my research and writing concerns knowledge classifications and space. I am particularly interested in how classifications in 'places of learning' (like libraries and university spaces/campuses) are enacted and negotiated through everyday practices, built pedagogies, and institutional discourses, and in what these practices reveal about the state and status of higher education.
My PhD research (awarded in 2020) examined a public-academic integrated library in central England and explored how ideas of ‘academic’ and ‘public’ knowledge, goods, and space are developed, (re)classified, and negotiated through live practice. My current research concerns the development of initiatives (such as ‘Civic Engagement’, and public impact) and spaces (such as publically accessible campus buildings and programmes) which alter the physical and cultural porosity of universities in public life.
My second key interest is in qualitative methodology. I enjoy writing, teaching and researching creative ethnographic methods including drawing and creative writing.
Publication
2024
- Quinn, K. 2024. The bookshelf’s ‘magic circle’: An ethnographic study of classification and classificatory practices in library spaces. Poetics 103, article number: 101888. (10.1016/j.poetic.2024.101888)
2023
- Quinn, K. 2023. Taking live methods slowly: inhabiting the social world through dwelling, doodling, and describing. Qualitative Research 23(1), pp. 3-20. (10.1177/14687941211012222)
2022
- Quinn, K. 2022. The university library as bellwether: examining the public role of Higher Education through listening to the library. Civic Sociology 3(1), article number: 32635. (10.1525/cs.2022.32635)
2021
- Quinn, K. 2021. Zoom time. Entanglements: Experiments in Multimodal Ethnography 4(2), pp. 19-20.
2020
- Quinn, K., Orlek, J. and Cornish, B. 2020. Writing alone together: making sense of lockdown through hundreds. [Online]. https://www.thesociologicalreview.com: Sociological Review Publication. Available at: https://www.thesociologicalreview.com/writing-alone-together-making-sense-of-lockdown-through-hundreds/
2019
- Quinn, K. and Bates, J. 2019. Everyday activism: challenging neoliberalism for radical library workers in English higher education. In: Tett, L. and Hamilton, M. eds. Resisting Neoliberalism in Education: Local, National and Transnational Perspectives. Policy Press
- Quinn, K. 2019. [How] Can there be non-compliance in UK HE librarianship? Or, in defence of ‘’68, or something’: a post-conference reflection. Art Libraries Journal 44(Specia), pp. 58-60. (10.1017/alj.2019.4)
2018
- Quinn, K. 2018. Enabling or envisioning politics of possibility? Examining the radical potential of academic libraries. In: Landes, J. and Espley, R. eds. Radical Collections: Re-examining the roots of collections, practices and information professions. University of London Press, pp. 65-77., (10.14296/1218.9781913002015)
- Quinn, K. 2018. Slow listening and multivoices. In: Orlek, J. ed. Multivoices: a script by researchers. Spirit Duplicator
2017
- Quinn, K. and Bates, J. 2017. Resisting neoliberalism: the challenge of activist librarianship in English higher education. Journal of Documentation 73(2), pp. 317-335. (10.1108/JD-06-2016-0076)
Articles
- Quinn, K. 2024. The bookshelf’s ‘magic circle’: An ethnographic study of classification and classificatory practices in library spaces. Poetics 103, article number: 101888. (10.1016/j.poetic.2024.101888)
- Quinn, K. 2023. Taking live methods slowly: inhabiting the social world through dwelling, doodling, and describing. Qualitative Research 23(1), pp. 3-20. (10.1177/14687941211012222)
- Quinn, K. 2022. The university library as bellwether: examining the public role of Higher Education through listening to the library. Civic Sociology 3(1), article number: 32635. (10.1525/cs.2022.32635)
- Quinn, K. 2021. Zoom time. Entanglements: Experiments in Multimodal Ethnography 4(2), pp. 19-20.
- Quinn, K. 2019. [How] Can there be non-compliance in UK HE librarianship? Or, in defence of ‘’68, or something’: a post-conference reflection. Art Libraries Journal 44(Specia), pp. 58-60. (10.1017/alj.2019.4)
- Quinn, K. and Bates, J. 2017. Resisting neoliberalism: the challenge of activist librarianship in English higher education. Journal of Documentation 73(2), pp. 317-335. (10.1108/JD-06-2016-0076)
Book sections
- Quinn, K. and Bates, J. 2019. Everyday activism: challenging neoliberalism for radical library workers in English higher education. In: Tett, L. and Hamilton, M. eds. Resisting Neoliberalism in Education: Local, National and Transnational Perspectives. Policy Press
- Quinn, K. 2018. Enabling or envisioning politics of possibility? Examining the radical potential of academic libraries. In: Landes, J. and Espley, R. eds. Radical Collections: Re-examining the roots of collections, practices and information professions. University of London Press, pp. 65-77., (10.14296/1218.9781913002015)
- Quinn, K. 2018. Slow listening and multivoices. In: Orlek, J. ed. Multivoices: a script by researchers. Spirit Duplicator
Websites
- Quinn, K., Orlek, J. and Cornish, B. 2020. Writing alone together: making sense of lockdown through hundreds. [Online]. https://www.thesociologicalreview.com: Sociological Review Publication. Available at: https://www.thesociologicalreview.com/writing-alone-together-making-sense-of-lockdown-through-hundreds/
Teaching
For 2023/24 I co-convene and teach on the year two methods module ‘Social Research Methods’, and co-convene the masters module ‘Research Applications’. I also contribute to ‘Sociological Inquiries’ (y1), 'Ethnography and Everyday Life' (y2), 'Sociology on the move' (y3), 'Decolonising Social Science' (y2), and 'Social Science Research Methods' (Masters).
Biography
Academic background: My PhD was in Sociology, completed at the University of Warwick (2020, funded by the ESRC). Prior to that, I did an MA in Librarianship at the University of Sheffield, funded by the AHRC. My undergraduate degree was in history from University College London.
Academic appointments: I have previously held the positions of postdoctural research fellow at WISERD, Cardiff, and academic tutor at the University of Nottingham.
In between and sometimes alongside academic education and appointments I have worked as a librarian in research, school, HE, and FE settings.
Research themes
Specialisms
- creative methods
- ethnography
- Library studies