Gaynor Bagnall is a Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Culture. Her research and teaching focus primarily on culture, consumption, social class and identity, and in particular social and cultural capital, culture-led regeneration, social and cultural life in cities, and audiences, museums, memory and heritage. She has researched and published widely on these topics, with work ranging from an investigation into the performativity of museum audiences, to an exploration of what it means to belong ‘locally’ in a global world. Currently, she is working on two research projects, Writing Lives: ‘Engaging Communities through Arts’ is funded by HEFCE and aims to examine the use of creative writing workshops as a form of culture-led regeneration. It explores their role as a means for the expression of identities, and as a facilitator of community cohesion and belonging. ‘Experiencing: The Imperial War Museum North’ is an examination of visitor responses to IWMN that looks at how people articulate their experience of the museum by drawing on particular biographical resources and narrative strategies.
