Centre for Heritage, Culture & Society
An interdisiplinary research centre applying a creative, critical lens to exploring heritage and its benefits and challenges in culture and society.
Photo credit: Steve Tanner
Projects within this Centre
Calipso De El Callao
The link between the UK and Venezuela is locked up in song. The knowledge of which is held by the fo...
Locating Tranquillity: New Understandings for Landscape Management
This project is a collaboration between Falmouth’s Centre for Heritage, Culture & Society, Cen...
Anthology of Rural Life
The Anthology of Rural Life is a photographic project that aims to produce an archive of materia...
INTANGIBLE
Understanding the socio-cultural dimensions of island population change in Scotland, England, Canada...
Jewish Heritage and Lived Experience in Cornwall
Cornwall’s hidden Jewish heritage peaks through like a palimpsest. Falmouth University students en...
Landscape Stories
This project began with the Falmouth University-National Trust (2020) Landscape Research Group pilot...
The Tregeagle Project
Using audio-visual archives to preserve and revitalise intangible cultural heritage in Cornwall and ...
Revoicing Cultural Landscapes
Re-voicing Cultural Landscapes studies the relationships between majority and minority perspectives ...
A Case for Cornish Public Service Media
Commissioned by Cornwall Council, this research paper investigates the potential business and develo...
Centre overview
The Centre for Heritage, Culture & Society is an interdisciplinary community of researchers and practitioners applying creative arts, humanities, and social sciences to address global heritage challenges. The Centre fosters collaborative, innovative research into tangible and intangible heritage, exploring how the benefits of engaging with heritage can be accessed, experienced, and enjoyed by all.
With over £1 million in external funding in the past five years, our research embraces our strong connection with Cornwall and Cornish culture while also working at an international scale. Recent collaborations have included the University of Groningen, University of Latvia, the James Hutton Institute, University of Prince Edward Island, Akita and Hiroshima universities, and a range of partners as part of Horizon Europe. Our partners outside academia are crucial to ensuring our work benefits society, and in recent projects we have been working closely with Historic England, English Heritage, Cornwall National Landscape, Lowender, and museums, sites, and heritage organisations in the heritage and culture sectors globally.
The work of the Centre is structured in relation to three key currents:
- Critical Heritage Geographies addresses how power and politics run through the societies and spaces of heritage. Projects include RE:VOICE (JPICH 2021-23) and INTANGIBLE (British Academy 2024-26) on the ethics and dynamics of participation in intangible cultural heritage, and a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership with Historic England. Research has benefited policy in the UK and internationally and enhances public understanding of ICH.
- Place and Plurality explores heritage as a component of multi-actor places and cultural landscapes, such as in a Cornwall National Landscape commission on “tranquillity”, benefiting landscape management policy and practice; and new approaches to engaging communities with more-than-human environments.
- Archives and Oral Histories projects include archives through photography, film, and oral histories, and stewardship of the Devonshire Collection of Period Costume, informing digital archiving, immersive experiences, and new approaches to engaging audiences with fashion heritage.
Dr Laura Hodsdon
Centre Lead
Dr Laura Hodsdon is Associate Professor in Heritage, Culture & Society, working on social geographies of heritage and landscape with particular interest in social justice, participation, and what heritage means to different people. She was recently Project Lead on RE:VOICE, a Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage/AHRC-funded research consortium to explore the dynamics and ethics of participation by different groups in national minoritiy cultures’ intangible cultural heritage. She is also Co-Applicant on a British Academy Knowledge Frontiers project led by the James Hutton Institute - INTANGIBLE: Understanding the socio-cultural dimensions of island population change in Scotland, England, Canada and Japan.
Read Dr Hodsdon's full profileDiscover our doctoral project briefs
The UK’s participation in the UNESCO Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage
Research proposals should capitalise on this crucial moment for ICH in the UK, and should pose resea...
Creative placemaking
The tangible, intangible, and mixed elements of place can be explored within this brief, to animate ...
Meet our PhD Researchers
Roel Meuleman
Thesis title: Cinematic Dialogues from the European Subaltern: The Renegotiation of Place-Images in ...
Lydia Hounat
Thesis title: Intergenerational Healing in the Isefra (Oral Poetry) of Kabyle Women in Algeria ...
Research opportunities
Research collaboration
We welcome collaboration with researchers, industry, and third sector organisations on work that aligns with the Centre's remit, and would love to hear from anyone interested in working together within any of our three research themes.
We have expertise in applying creative and social science methods to projects with a broad disciplinary scope, and have offered our perspectives in Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) to Horizon Europe projects. Our strong grounding in creative practice brings expertise not just in public-facing dissemination outputs but also in applying a fresh lens of creativity to heritage questions as part of robust methodologies and theoretical approaches.
Please get in touch using the email address below if you would like to discuss collaborating with the Centre.
Research degrees
We accept proposals for MPhil or PhD study from applicants with a project idea of their own which aligns with the aims of the Centre for Heritage, Culture & Society or as a response to one of our associated Falmouth Doctoral Project briefs below.
Find out more about the application process for MPhil or PhD study with us on our Research Degrees pages:
