Dr Anna Woodham

Anna is a Senior Lecturer in Museum and Heritage Studies in the Department of Culture, Media and Creative Industries (CMCI). Before joining CMCI in 2015 Anna worked at the Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage (IIICH) at the University of Birmingham lecturing in Heritage Management and World Heritage Studies. Anna holds a PhD from the University of Leicester exploring social inclusion and the geography of school visits to museums. Her PhD was co-funded by the ESRC and the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS). Anna also holds an MA in Museum Studies (University College London) and is on the editorial board for the Journal Museum & Society.

Anna comes from a policy and museum practice background, and has worked at the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and in the UK museum sector, including posts at the Fitzwilliam Museum (University of Cambridge) and the British Dental Association Museum, among others.

Anna has been involved as PI or Co-I on six AHRC funded projects including:

‘Integrating forms of Care: Building Communities of Practice around Reserve Collections’ and ‘Enduring Connections, Heritage, Sustainable Development and Climate Change in Kiribati’ as well as the Who Cares? project from which the volume ‘Exploring Emotion, Care and Enthusiasm in “unloved” Collections” was published.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

Anna is an interdisciplinary researcher focusing on the management of museum and archival collections and wider museum and heritage policy and practice. She is interested in supervising PhD projects on the following topics:

• Emotional labour and affective practices in the museum and heritage sector, ideas of care and ethics.

• The management of collections and archives in the context of rapid sectoral and societal change e.g. decolonisation, activism, new technologies, new business models, ways of working.

• Enthusiast/fan communities in museums and heritage sites

• Contemporary collecting and wider collecting practices.

• Topics relating to stored and reserve museum collections

• Heritage and climate change, in terms of policy, law, impact on heritage communities and implications for heritage practitioners.

• Museum and heritage policy in the UK and Internationally.

Previous and current PhD supervision topics include:

• Co-creation and organisational change in museums
• Fan communities, identity and pop culture museums.
• The representation of Indigenous Communities in Museums in Taiwan.
• Narratives of World Heritage in West Lake, China.
• Contemporary professional Identity for crafts practitioners.

Selected publications

No man is an island entire of itself" Legal Frameworks and the Relocation of a Nation's Archive due to Rising Sea Levels, Woodham, A., & Gordon-Clark, M. (2021) Comma, (Journal of the International Council on Archives) Vol. 2, pp.345-362. 

Exploring Emotion, Care and Enthusiasm in "unloved" Museum Collections Woodham, A., Woodham, A. (ed.), Smith, R. (ed.) & Hess, A. (ed.), 31 Jul 2020, Leeds: Arc Humanities Press. (Collection Development, Cultural Heritage and Digital Humanities).

Mobilising the Energy in Store: stored collections, enthusiast experts and the ecology of heritageElizabeth, H. & Woodham, A., 30 Oct 2019, In: The Science Museum Group Journal. Autumn 2019, 12.

We Are What We Keep: The “family archive”, identity and public/private heritage Woodham, A., King, L., Gloyn, E., Crewe, V. & Blair, F., 4 Mar 2019, In: Heritage and Society. 10, 3, p. 203-220.

Museum Studies and Heritage: independent museums and the 'heritage debate' in the UKWoodham, A. L., 1 Nov 2018, A Museum Studies Approach to Heritage. Watson, S., Barnes, A. J. & Bunning, K. (eds.). abingdon: Routledge, p. 29 (Leicester Readers in Museum Studies).

Teaching

Anna teaches subjects that are closely aligned to her research interests in museums and heritage organisations including museum and heritage audiences, the challenges of managing collections and the shifting meanings and values associated with collections. Anna is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA).