Dr Tamsyn Dent

Biography

I am interested in cultural work and creative labour. My research primarily explores questions on identifying who does the work of culture and creativity over whose work is valued. I joined the CMCI Department in March 2019 as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on a European-wide research project titled ‘Developing Inclusive and Sustainable Creative Economies’ (DISCE). This was a collaborative research project which explored challenges and opportunities for local creative economies within ten European cities. My doctoral research investigated the impact of motherhood on women working in the UK's creative media industries, considering how the policy regimes linked to creative work and care placed women with children in a particularly devalued and precarious employment position.

As such, my research interests span across the cultural, structural and spatial elements of work within creative economies from everyday, grassroots forms of community based cultural engagement to large scale media conglomerates and the interconnections between them. I have a particular interest in examining questions of access and inclusion within creative labour markets from the global to the local level.

Research Interests and PhD supervision

• Cultural work and creative labour
• Employment policy, access and inclusion
• Creative education, access and inclusion
• Creative resistance, activism and change-making
• Cultural work, care and social justice.

I welcome applications for PhD topics related to any of these research interests.

Selected Publications

Dent, T. 2022, ‘Emerging forms of resistance from within the creative workforce’ in A Modern Guide to the Creative Economy. Comunian, R. (ed.), Wilson, N. (ed.), Faggian, A. (ed.) & Heinonen, J. (ed.) Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.

Tanghetti, J., Dent, T., and Comunian, R. 2022. ‘Covid-19 opened the pandora box’ of the creative city: creative and cultural workers against precarity in Milan | Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society | Oxford Academic

Wilson, N., Gross, J., Dent, T., Comunian, R., Kim, S., Snowball, J., Friderichs, T., Rogan, M. & Chau, K. 2022. 'The Cultural Development Index: Theorisation and Implications DISCE Publications.'

Dent. T. 2020. Devalued women, valued men: motherhood, class and neoliberal feminism in the creative media industries’ Media, Culture and Society 42(4) 

Dent, T. 2020. ‘Diversity, Intersectionality and Care in the UK Screen Sector’. /encatcSCHOLARS issue 13

For more details, please see my full PURE research profile.

Teaching

I teach across subjects linked to creative labour and cultural work including media production cultures, gender and creative labour, transnational cultural policy, creative industries and institutions.

Expertise and Public Engagement

I am part of the research team linked to the UK Government's All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Creative Diversity and co-wrote the research report 'Creative Majority: An APPG for Creative Diversity report on ‘What Works’ to support, encourage and improve equality, diversity and inclusion in the creative sector' published in 2021. You can access the report through this link: https://www.kcl.ac.uk/cultural/projects/creative-majority.

I have provided research consultancy for a number of industry institutions including Birds Eye View, Screen Skills (formerly Creative Skillset), Women in Film and TV, Raising Films and The Film and Television Charity. I have sat on panels linked to EDI in the creative and cultural sector at industry events across Europe.

Please email me directly for any queries linked to public engagement and collaborative research.