Dr Emma McDowell

Profile

As a Lecturer in Cultural and Creative Industries, my research and teaching explores how cultural value is understood, articulated and enacted through arts marketing, evaluation, management and leadership practices. Broadly speaking, I explore how people make sense of their cultural experiences through the lens of participatory sense-making and my work is grounded in enactive and embodied approaches to cognition. More specifically, I have a particular interest in how cultural value emerges with the context of live perofrmance, through the interaction and engagement of audiences, artists and cultural organisations.

Before joining PCI full-time as a Lecturer, I worked for 16 years in producing, marketing and research roles across the cultural sector; experience that continues to inform my teaching and research. Supported by a While Rose College of Arts & Humanities doctoral studentship, I completed my PhD at PCI in 2022. Prior to this role, I fulfilled research roles at the Centre for Cultural Value where I developed a number of resources on evaluation and cultural engagement for practitioners, policy-makers and the wider research community, including the Evaluation Learning Space and Futurelearn online course.

Responsibilities

• Programme Lead for Audiences, Engagement, Participation MA
• Taught Postgraduate Programmes Coordinator [incl. Admissions lead]
• Participation & Engagement Research Group [co-lead]

Research interests

My work explores how we articulate, communicate and enact cultural value within marketing, evaluation, management, and leadership structures in the arts and cultural sector.

My PhD thesis, titled ‘From transaction to enaction: reframing theatre marketing’, explored how we articulate and communicate the value of live performance. In partnership with HOME Greater Manchester Arts Centre and funded by an AHRC White Rose College of Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH) doctoral studentship, I proposed that art, and theatre in particular, is not a simple product that provides universal benefits to everyone, but one that relies on the situated interaction of individuals in a particular time and space. By applying theories from the enactive school of embodied cognition to the processes of theatre-making, audiencing, arts marketing and our understanding of cultural value, I argue for the significant potential in reframing these terms anew as reliant on embodied and intersubjectively distributed languaging practices of audience, theatre-maker and cultural intermediary.

Prior to working in academia, I held a number of roles in the arts and cultural sector in arts marketing, audience development, producing and programming and evaluation. This professional experience fuels and informs my research interests, including how notions of cultural value are articulated, communicated and enacted through both arts management and policy processes. My research interests continue to be informed by ongoing collaborations and interdisciplinary partnerships with researchers and practitioners working in the field of creative and cultural industries.

Qualifications

• PhD (2022) School of Performance & Cultural Industries, University of Leeds
• MA (2009) Arts Administration & Cultural Policy, Goldsmiths College University of London
• BA (2008) Drama & French Studies, University of Birmingham

Professional memberships

• Theatre & Performance Research Association (TaPRA)
• Neurodiversity in/and Creative Research Network