Biography
I joined the Tourism and Intercultural Business Communication group within the Business School at Âé¶¹ÉçÇø as Lecturer in Intercultural Business Communication in January 2019 and was Programme Leader for the BA (Hons) in Languages and Intercultural Communication from August 2019 until July 2024. I am now Programme Leader for the new BA (Hons) Intercultural Business Communication and Marketing / Tourism Management programmes. I previously worked at the universities of Leeds, Aberystwyth and Lancaster after completing a PhD in German Studies at the University of Glasgow.
My research interests and expertise lie in the broad areas of border studies, migration and intercultural communication, and I am currently working on the following projects:
- 'Creating cross-border communities: The European Capital of Culture 2022, Esch-sur-Alzette' explores the representation and creation of place, sense of place and cross-border community in some of the participatory, 'grassroots' projects and events featured in the Capital of Culture programme. I am particularly interested in multilingual events, including theatre productions, which focus on the border between Luxembourg and France and on expressions and constructions of local, regional, national and 'European' identities.
- 'Representations of Migration and 'Post-Migration' in Recent German-Language Drama', explores thematic and aesthetic responses to migration to and settlement in (West) Germany and Austria from the 1960s to the current day. Using theories of borders and hospitality, I look at dramatic and theatrical engagement with both the 'guest worker' era of temporary labour migration in the 1960s and 1970s, which led to the long-term settlement of many people from southern Europe and north Africa, and the more recent arrival of refugees from Africa and the Middle East.
In May 2023, I worked with colleagues in Intercultural Communication to organise the international research symposium 'Imagining and Experiencing Hospitalities in a Mobile World' at Edinburgh Napier. This symposium featured a range of papers exploring the intersections between 'hospitalities' and 'interculturalities' in diverse contexts, including migration and asylum, internationalisation of Higher Education, and tourism.
I am currently supervising 4 PhD students working on interculturality, mindfulness and migration; translation markets in the UK and the EU; students' reverse intercultural adaptation in Chinese universities; and translation of intangible cultural heritage texts in China.
As well as being Programme Leader for the undergraduate Intercultural Business Communication programmes, I lead and teach on both undergraduate and postgraduate modules in intercultural communication.
I am a member of the International Association for Languages and Intercultural Communication (IALIC) and of Edinburgh Napier's Mobilities and Movement Research Network (MMRN).
I am a fellow of the HEA.