About
I am a cultural sociologist committed to exploring the relationship between music and class and its intersections with belonging, community, and lived experiences of place. In my research, I use ethnographic methods to ask what localised musical experiences can tell us about such social identities. My current AHRC-funded PhD project is an ethnography of music and everyday life in the South Wales Valleys. Through this research, I explore the role music plays in structuring working-class culture in a post-industrial context, from Elvis impersonators and line dancing to pub sing-alongs and jazz bands.
I have broad interests in the sociology of music and class; popular music and qualitative research methodologies; place, belonging and heritage; and community music. Past projects have included work on the mediation of music and grief through social media networks, and the ageing male body in popular music. I hold a first-class honours degree in Music from the University of Southampton and master’s degree in Music with distinction from Cardiff University.
At Southampton, I have taught on undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Music, including Global Transformations in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Music, The American Musical, and Research Project. In the year 2023-2024, I am a postgraduate teaching assistant in Sociology at the University of Bristol, providing tuition on the modules Introducing Culture and Investigating Society. Previously to beginning my doctoral studies, I worked as an instrumental and full-class tutor for numerous local music services, and have experience working at all levels of education, from early years to adult, in both mainstream and special education.
Alongside my academic work, I teach music and lead community-based projects and workshops. As a first-generation academic, I feel passionately about widening access to higher education, and work closely with educational charities such as The Brilliant Club to deliver accessible and inclusive outreach programmes.
I have served as the Student Representative on the Royal Musical Association’s Student Committee, and was responsible for organising the BFE/RMA Research Students’ Conference at Northumbria University in January 2023. I have also served as an editor for Emergence: A Journal for the Arts and Humanities, and as a representative on both the SWWDTP’s Student Committee and Equality, Diversity, and Inclusivity Working Party. I am a member of the International Association for the Study of Popular Music, the Royal Musical Association, the British Forum for Ethnomusicology, the Centre for Welsh Politics and Society, and Llafur: Welsh People’s History Association.