Professor Bella Dicks
Professor in Sociology
Overview
Links
Supervision
I am interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas of sociology:
- Community, civil society, participation
- Belonging, place, neighbourhood, inclusion/exclusion
- Class, inequalities, identities
- Heritage, collective memory, museums and science centres, cultural display
- Regeneration, post-industrial identities of place/people
- Digital and online interactions and methodologies
- Qualitative methodology, multimodality.
Biography
I am currently Reader in Sociology at Cardiff School of Social Sciences. My research is in the field of digital qualitative methods, heritage, museums, culture-led economic regeneration, social disadvantage and class. I am particularly interested in how places and people deal with the cultural and social dislocations accompanying de-industrialisation and how regeneration strategies connect (or otherwise) with community members on the ground. My 2000 book Heritage, Place and Community, traces the processes through which a south Wales coal-mine was transformed into a 'living history' museum, while the 2004 book Culture on Display critically appraises the contemporary regeneration focus on the production of place 'visitability'. I am currently pursuing research on regeneration within the Wales Institute for Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD), which is carrying out a number of comparative locality studies across Wales.
I have been an academic staff member at Cardiff University since 1993, when I arrived to take up a post as Tutorial Fellow in the then Dept of Social and Administrative Studies, and to pursue my doctoral research. I subsequently held a Research Fellowship working on the hypermedia project led by Prof. Paul Atkinson, Use Of Hypermedia Techniques In The Analysis & Dissemination Of Qualitative Data, and later became a lecturer in Sociology in the new School of Social Sciences. Before coming to Wales, I was a researcher in at the then Sheffield City Polytechnic (now Sheffield Hallam University) in the Dept of Media, Culture and Communication. There I undertook research into the coalmining communities of Doncaster, an area in which I grew up. This sparked a life-long research interest in coalfield culture and regeneration.
Publications
2019
- Berger, S., Dicks, B. and Fontaine, M. 2019. 'Community': a useful concept in heritage studies?. International Journal of Heritage Studies 26(4), pp. 325-351. (10.1080/13527258.2019.1630662)
- Henwood, K., Dicks, B. and Housley, W. 2019. Qualitative research in reflexive mode: The participatory turn and interpretive social science. Qualitative Research 19(3), pp. 241-246. (10.1177/1468794119844103)
2018
- Dicks, B. 2018. Heritage as a social practice. In: Hooper, G. ed. Heritage at the Interface: Interpretation and Identity. Cultural Heritage Studies Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, pp. 11-24., (10.2307/j.ctvx06znr.6)
2016
- Henwood, K. L., Dicks, B. and Housley, W. 2016. Editorial. Qualitative Research 16(3), pp. 257. (10.1177/1468794116638982)
- Dicks, B. 2016. The habitus of heritage: a discussion of Bourdieu's ideas for visitor studies in heritage and museums. Museum and Society 14(1), pp. 52-64. (10.29311/mas.v14i1.625)
2015
- Housley, W.et al. 2015. Editorial. Qualitative Research 15(1), pp. 3-3. (10.1177/1468794114567381)
- Dicks, B. 2015. Heritage and social class. In: Waterton, E. and Watson, S. eds. The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Heritage Research. Basingstoke: Palgrave, pp. 366-38.
2013
- Dicks, B. 2013. Action, experience, communication: three methodological paradigms for researching multimodal and multisensory settings. Qualitative Research n/a (10.1177/1468794113501687)
- Dicks, B. 2013. Participatory community regeneration: a discussion of risks, accountability and crisis in devolved Wales. Urban Studies n/a (10.1177/0042098013493023)
- Dicks, B. 2013. Interacting with .. what? Exploring children's social and sensory practices in a science discovery centre. Ethnography and Education 8(3), pp. 301-322. (10.1080/17457823.2013.792677)
2011
- Hurdley, R. and Dicks, B. 2011. In-between practice: working in the 'thirdspace' of sensory and multimodal methodology. Qualitative Research 11(3), pp. 277-292. (10.1177/1468794111399837)
- Dicks, B.et al. 2011. Multimodality and ethnography: working at the intersection [Editorial]. Qualitative Research 11(3), pp. 227-237. (10.1177/1468794111400682)
- Dicks, B. and Mason, B. 2011. Clickable data: hypermedia and social research. In: Hesse-Biber, S. N. ed. The handbook of emergent technologies in social research. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 133-157.
- Dicks, B. ed. 2011. Digital qualitative research methods. SAGE Benchmarks in Social Research Methods. London: Sage.
2009
- Dicks, B. and Hurdley, R. 2009. Using unconventional media to disseminate qualitative research. Qualitative Researcher 10, pp. 2-6.
2008
- Dicks, B. 2008. Performing the hidden injuries of class in coal-mining heritage. Sociology 42(3), pp. 436-452. (10.1177/0038038508088824)
- Dicks, B. and Mason, B. 2008. Hypermedia methods for qualitative research. In: Hesse-Biber, S. N. and Leavy, P. eds. Handbook of Emergent Methods. New York, USA: Guilford Press, pp. 571-601.
2007
- Mason, B.et al. 2007. Possibilities of multimedia qualitative data archiving and sharing using eXtensible Mark-up Language (XML) [Briefing Paper]. Cardiff University. Available at: http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/hyper/QUADS/Briefing%20paper%201%20XML.pdf
2006
- Scourfield, J. B.et al. 2006. The significance of place in middle childhood: qualitative research from Wales. British Journal of Sociology 57(4), pp. 577-595. (10.1111/j.1468-4446.2006.00126.x)
- Scourfield, J. B.et al. 2006. Children, place and identity: nation and locality in middle childhood. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Coffey, A. J.et al. 2006. Hypermedia ethnography in educational settings. Ethnography and Education 1(1), pp. 15-30. (10.1080/17457820500512721)
- Dicks, B., Soyinka, B. L. and Coffey, A. J. 2006. Multimodal ethnography. Qualitative Research 6(1), pp. 77-96. (10.1177/1468794106058876)
- Dicks, B.et al. 2006. Ethnography and data re-use: issues of context and hypertext. Methodological Innovations 1(2), pp. 33-46. (10.4256/mio.2006.0010)
2005
- Dicks, B.et al. 2005. Qualitative research and hypermedia: ethnography for the digital age. New Technologies for Social Research Series. London: Sage.
2004
- Dicks, B. 2004. Culture on display: the production of contemporary visitability. Buckingham: Open University Press.
- Williams, M. L.et al. 2004. Qualitative data sharing and reuse: mapping the ethical terrain [briefing paper]. Cardiff University. Available at: http://www.cf.ac.uk/socsi/hyper/QUADS/Briefing%20paper%20ethics.pdf
2001
- Dicks, B.et al. 2001. Out of the ashes: the social impact of industrial contraction and regeneration on Britain's mining communities. Regions and Cities Vol. 25. London: Routledge.
Bella's main research interests are in the field of cultural sociology, and particularly focus on placed identities, cultural representation, regeneration and heritage. They fall into three broad areas of research: