Dr Laura Hodsdon

Associate Professor in Heritage, Culture & Society

Dr Laura Hodsdon is Associate Professor in Heritage, Culture & Society, working on heritage and landscape with particular interest in social justice and what heritage means to different people: 

  • Intangible cultural heritage and the sociology and ethics of participation
  • European national minorities and cultural heritage
  • Heritage values and how different people engage with material heritage
  • Discourses of/in sites and landscapes, power and privilege
  • Missing or hidden heritage stories
  • Diversity and inclusion in rural landscapes

She leads Falmouth's Centre for Heritage, Culture & Society, an interdisciplinary research centre that uses a critical lens to produce impactful research about people’s relationships with past, present and future places and landscapes. She was recently Project Lead/UK Principal Investigator on Re:voice, a European Commission 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. The results of this research will be published in Routledge's Critical Heritages of Europe series, in an edited volume 'Revoicing Intangible Cultural Heritage: Perspectives from the Margins of Europe' in June 2025. She is also currently Co-Applicant on a British Academy Knowledge Frontiers project Intangible: Understanding the socio-cultural dimensions of island population change in Scotland, England, Canada and Japan.

After a BA in English Literature at the University of York and PhD in Classics at the University of Leeds, she worked in various policy research roles at the Higher Education Academy (now AdvanceHE) before becoming a policy advisor at the University of Oxford specialising in race and gender equality, implicit bias, and professional development for research staff. She's also a licensed Springboard trainer and ILM Level 5 certified coach, Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Associate for AdvanceHE, and has undertaken research consultancy for Trinity College London. She joined Falmouth University in Spring 2018.

External Links

Associate Professor in Heritage, Culture & Society

Contact details

Email Laura.Hodsdon@falmouth.ac.uk

    Qualifications

    Qualifications

    Year Qualification Awarding body
    2008 PhD in Classics University of Leeds
    2007 MA in Classical Civilisation University of Leeds
    2004 BA in English Literature University of York

    Membership of external committees

    Cornwall FA Inclusion Advisory Group, AHRC Peer Review College

    Research Interests

    Research interests and expertise

    I work on heritage and landscape with particular interest in social justice and what heritage means to different people: 

    • Intangible cultural heritage and the sociology and ethics of participation
    • European national minorities and cultural heritage
    • Heritage values and how different people engage with material heritage
    • Discourses of/in sites and landscapes, power and privilege
    • Missing or hidden heritage stories
    • Diversity and inclusion in rural landscapes

    Research Outputs

    Publications and research outputs

    • Christman, Kate

      Hodsdon, Laura, (2023), The Bee Brick: building habitat for solitary bees, In: International Journal of Sustainable Design, Inderscience Publishers, Online and print, Vol.4 (No.3/4), pp. 285-304, ISSN: 1743-8284

    • Hodsdon, Laura

      (2021), “Picture perfect” landscape stories: normative narratives and authorised discourse, In: Landscape Research, Taylor & Francis, London, 47 (2), pp. 271-284

    • Hodsdon, Laura

      (2021), Visitors’ discursive responses to hegemonic and alternative museum narratives: a case study of Le Modèle Noir, In: Critical Discourse Studies, Taylor & Francis, London, 19 (4), pp. 401-417, ISSN: 1740-5904

    • Hodsdon, Laura

      (2019), ‘I expected … something’: imagination, legend, and history in TripAdvisor reviews of Tintagel Castle, In: Journal of Heritage Tourism, Taylor and Francis, UK, 15 (4), pp. 410-423, ISSN: 1743-873X

    • Rofe, Michael

      Hodsdon, Laura, (2017), Experiencing Online Orchestra - Communities, Connections and Music-Making through Telematic Performance, In: Journal of Music, Technology and Education, Intellect Ltd, UK, 10 (2-3), pp. 257-276, ISSN: 17527066

    • Blonska, Agnieszka

      Hodsdon, Laura, Frears, Lucy, Vautier, Gabby, Megaw, Neal, Tanner, Steve, Impossible Producing and Tate St Ives, (2023), Re:Voice, In: Re:Voice, 29.04.2023, Tate Gallery, St Ives

    • Hodsdon, Laura

      (2024), Landscape, discourse, and identity across the borders of European national minority cultures, In: 30th Jubilee Session of the Permanent European Conference for the Study of the Rural Landscape (PECSRL), 9-15 September 2024, Lublin & Zamość, Poland

    • Frears, Lucy

      Hodsdon, Laura, (2023), Insiders and outsiders researching insiders and outsiders by Lucy Frears & Laura Hodsdon, In: Symposium: Re:voicing Cultural Landscapes Narrative and Non-narrative traditions across media - part of: Heritage, Identity and Inclusivity Leeuwarden Summer School in collaboration with the Heritage Lab, 3rd - 7th July 2023, Leeuwarden, the Netherlands

    • Hodsdon, Laura

      (2022), Hidden in plain sight: Local narratives, authorised discourses, and a First World War seaplane base, In: 43rd Theoretical Archaeology Group conference, 15-17 December 2022, University of Edinburgh

    • Hodsdon, Laura

      (2023), ‘Absences’, in Shakespeare E and MacMillan V (eds) Sensing the Land

    • Hodsdon, Laura

      (2024), Revoicing intangible cultural heritage, In: Revoicing Intangible Cultural Heritage: Perspectives from the Margins of Europe, Routledge, London, ISBN: tbc, (Unpublished), Item availability may be restricted.

    • Tattersall, Felicity

      Hodsdon, Laura, (2023), Re:voice archive database, (Unpublished), Item availability may be restricted.

    • Hodsdon, Laura

      (2025), Revoicing Intangible Cultural Heritage, Routledge, London, ISBN: 9781032597294, Item availability may be restricted.

    Externally funded research grants information

    Collaborators Currency Funder HESA Category Project title Value Year ending Year starting

    University of Groningen, University of Latvia, and University of Tartu

    		 € Joint Programming Initiative on Cultural Heritage/AHRC Re-voicing Cultural Landscapes: Narratives, Perspectives, and Performances of Marginalised Intangible Cultural Heritage 608,374 2023 2021

    National Trust

    		 Landscape Research Group Landscape Stories: an investigation of organisations’ and diverse audiences’ narratives of the countryside to advance landscape justice 2021 2020

    James Hutton Institute, Scotland’s Rural College, University of Prince Edward Island, Canada, Hiroshima University, Japan, Akita University, Japan, Hokkaido University, Japan

    		 British Academy Intangible 2024

    Research Students

    Current research students

    Please get in touch if you're interested in undertaking PhD study in any of the following areas:

    • Intangible cultural heritage, particularly relating to minoritised communities
    • Implicit (unconscious) bias, privilege and power
    • Discourse and normative policy and practice, particularly in heritage or organisational contexts
    • Equal and inclusive representation and experience in the workplace

    Business Engagement

    Consultancy and facility services

    I am an Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion Associate for AdvanceHE.