Professor Bella Dicks
Deputy Head of School
- Available for postgraduate supervision
Overview
Professor of Sociology at Cardiff School of Social Sciences and Deputy Head of School
Biography
Before coming to Wales, I was a researcher 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, the effects of economic transformation on people and places, and how social identities, heritage and culture are implicated in regeneration.
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 an ESRC-funded hypermedia project led by Prof. Paul Atkinson, Use Of Hypermedia Techniques In The Analysis & Dissemination Of Qualitative Data, which led to other ESRC-funded methodological projects on hypermedia and qualitative secondary data analysis.
In 1999 I became a lecturer in Sociology in the new School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University.
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 my 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.
Links
Publications
2019
- Dicks, B. 2019. Industrial heritage as place-making – the case of Wales. In: Berger, S. ed. Constructing Industrial Pasts: Industrial Heritage Making in Britain, the West and Post-Socialist Countries. Oxford: Berghahn Books
- Dicks, B. 2019. Multimodal analysis. In: Atkinson, P. et al. eds. SAGE Research Methods Foundations. London: Sage, (10.4135/9781526421036831970)
- 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)
- Dicks, B. 2019. Competing sources of museum legitimacy: dominant, residual and emergent definitions. Urbanities - Journal of Urban Ethnography 9(Supple), pp. 29-36.
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., Dicks, B., Henwood, K. L. and Smith, R. J. 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., Flewitt, R., Lancaster, L. and Pahl, K. 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., Williams, M. L., Dicks, B. and Coffey, A. J. 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., Dicks, B., Holland, S., Drakeford, M. and Davies, A. 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., Dicks, B., Drakeford, M. and Davies, A. 2006. Children, place and identity: nation and locality in middle childhood. Abingdon: Routledge.
- Coffey, A. J., Renold, E., Dicks, B., Soyinka, B. L. and Mason, B. L. 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., Mason, B., Williams, M. L. and Coffey, A. J. 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., Mason, B. L., Coffey, A. J. and Atkinson, P. A. 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., Dicks, B., Coffey, A. J. and Mason, B. 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., Waddington, D., Critcher, C. and Parry, D. 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.
2000
- Dicks, B. 2000. Heritage, place and community. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.
My main research interests are in the field of cultural sociology, and especially in social identities and how they are rooted in places, processes of cultural representation (especially in museums and visitor centres focused on heritage), collective memory and on strategies of economic and social regeneration.
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. In these areas my particular focus is on questions of socio-economic disadvantage and class.
I am also active in the field of digital qualitative methods, ethnography and multimodal methods.
You can find out more about my three broad areas of research here:
Supervision
Supervision
I am interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas of sociology:
- Community, civil society, participation
- Belonging, place/nation, neighbourhood, inclusion/exclusion
- Class, inequalities, identities
- Heritage, collective memory, museums and science centres, cultural display, tourism
- Regeneration, post-industrial identities of place/people
- Digital and online interactions/methodologies - qualitative
- Qualitative methodology, ethnography, multimodality.