Research Spotlight: Dr Sara Perry

What is your role and what does it involve?

At UCL, I am Associate Professor in Digital Public Archaeology, where I teach digital heritage, digital museology, critical heritage studies, and public engagement, primarily at the Master’s level. I lead on four major grant-funded research projects, overseeing a small team based at UCL, and collaborators across Europe. I am relatively new to UCL – I joined in June – so I’m still getting settled and am keen to connect with others across the university, especially those whose teaching, research or professional practice intersects with digital culture and knowledge exchange.

I have also recently taken up a post on the REF’s Research Diversity Advisory Panel. Here I am one of 12 people working to ensure that our definitions of what research is – and can be – are broad and representative of the range of skills and people who pursue research activities in the UK.

What do you find most interesting or enjoyable about your work?

Archaeology is often associated with stereotypes – e.g., about what it entails, or who does it, or who it is relevant to. I enjoy challenging these stereotypes, flipping around the usual narratives, and exposing other ways that archaeology can be practiced. It is a potential source of wonder and enchantment for all, and it is filled with opportunities for creative engagement, critical thinking and interpretative complexity.

Tell us about your research.

My research converges around how people relate to and use the past for different purposes – and how technologies and structures (e.g., digital tools and devices, museums, archives, universities, businesses, the media, etc.) impact how we engage with history, heritage and archaeology. I have spent many years studying how systems and feelings (often invisible or unspoken) affect how the past is perceived and portrayed. My projects now generally focus on building alternatives to typical ways of interpreting the past, and collaborating with different people and organisations in order to make possible these alternatives.

What led you to pursue a research career in this field?

Some experiences during my childhood led me to become interested in why people are as they are: how our contexts and relationships have shaped us, how we navigate complexity and conflict, and how we can learn to be different together. I am Canadian and I trained in environments where people’s access to and ownership over their own histories was often denied by - or in conflict with - those in power. Given that the past illuminates so many different ways of living and being, I was interested in how it could be a launchpad for conversations and collaborations in the present that support and enable difference – rather than fixing singular outlooks or forcing us all to conform.

Congratulations on being appointed to the REF 2029 Research Diversity Advisory Panel (RDAP). What do you most look forward to achieving in this role?

I am honoured to have been appointed to the RDAP because I have direct experience of struggling with a lack of openness to diversity of research. In the early years of my university career, this constrained my ability to be recognised as a legitimate academic, and in my industry role at MOLA, it affected my teams in being able to reach the audiences and make the impacts necessary to truly effect social and economic change. Working in private research, I also had the opportunity to experience – and constructively respond to – the challenges encountered by those who sit outside government and academia and who are often excluded from its lingo, conventions and expectations. I look forward to being able to represent the perspectives and expertise that make up the complex ecosystem of research in the UK, and to ensure the varied datasets that comprise diverse research are recognised in REF2029.

What working achievement or initiative are you most proud of?

I worked for more than four years in industry where I oversaw a team of more than 100 people. I was confronted with many challenges throughout my tenure in that role, and was repeatedly told that certain things that I felt were a necessity to improve working conditions and prospects for archaeologists in the UK were impossible to achieve. I am very proud to have realised several of my goals, including leading on the first-ever Impact Acceleration Account (IAA) award to be granted to an arts and humanities-based Independent Research Organisation. The IAA has now funded a series of phenomenal projects that previously would have been unheard of – keep your eyes peeled for them. Separately, I love teaching, and am proud of have won various awards and nominations for pedagogy, including runner-up for the Times Higher Education’s Most Innovative Teacher of the Year category.

What's next on the research horizon for you?

This month I am wrapping up two very different research projects – Unpath'd Waters and an ARC Accelerate entrepreneurial grant – whilst also leading on two others – Transforming Data Reuse in Archaeology (TETRARCHs) and Networks for Transformational Change (KEF). I am looking forward to having a bit more time to breathe and focus! On TETRARCHs, we are setting up a new collaboration in Sardinia between the Tharros Archaeological Research Project and La Fondazione Mont’e Prama to experiment with different forms of storytelling in archaeology. On KEF, we are building various networks and resources focused on the relationships between knowledge exchange and transformations in digital culture.

Can you share some interesting work that you read about recently?

I have been profoundly affected by the writings and practice of Vanessa Machado de Oliveira (Vanessa Andreotti), whose approach to navigating the paradoxes of the past and present, to intergenerational responsibility, to ‘repetitive’ care, and to living with compassion and accountability, now infuses all aspects of my work. Her book Hospicing Modernity: Facing Humanity’s Wrongs and the Implications for Social Activism (also see Hospicing Modernity: A Conversation), has been transformative for me, and I recently saw her speak at the Serpentine Gallery where she indicated she has another book is in the works. I can’t wait!

What would it surprise people to know about you?

Probably not much, as I am generally very open about my life and experiences. I was a competitive tap dancer for many years – so some of the costumes, makeup and mishaps linked to my tapping are good for a laugh!

Links

• Key UCL appointments to REF 2029 People and Diversity Advisory Panel
• Dr Sara Perry's academic profile
• UCL Institute of Archaeology

Image Credit

Seamus Ryan Photography

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