Research projects

Blue and white patterned china including cups and saucers, a teapot and a sugar bowl and spoons are laid out on a dark wood table

Hidden Histories of Home: Domestic Stories and Displays, 1600 to the Present

Nine fully funded new AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentships will feed into our research hub and become part of the CSH cohort, with the first students starting from October 2024.

A group of women and girls stand on a walkway at a block of flats, holding a paper sign saying 'lockdown 2020'.

Stay Home Stories: rethinking the domestic in the COVID-19 pandemic

Staying at home was a key strategy in saving lives during the COVID-19 pandemic. How has the pandemic changed our relationship to home?

Stay Home Stories addresses this question through interviews, podcasts, films and events in London and Liverpool. The project is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) as part of the UK Research and Innovation rapid response to COVID-19.

Shopfronts on Kingsland Road, some with graffiti on their shutters

Home - City - Street

‘Home - City - Street’ explores diverse experiences and meanings of home on the Kingsland Road, East London, a street whose diversity spans housing types and tenures, ethnicity and socio-economics, and the range of organizations rooted in the local communities. The project is funded by the QMUL Centre for Public Engagement fund and the Queen Mary Critiques grant.

A group of people gathered around a large sphere, in a busy street

Globe

Globe is a collaborative filmic and sculptural project developed by Janetka Platun, Leverhulme artist in residence in Geography and Drama at Queen Mary University London. Globe explores questions of home and migration in East London, challenging perceptions of home territory and geographical boundaries. Globe relates to the local and the global, questioning ideas of who falls inside and outside, them and us.

A large group of people in matching blue t-shirts wave and gesture to the camera

‘Home Is…’

‘Home is…’ is a project with Queen Mary University of London, Praxis for Migrants and Refugees, the Museum of the Home and artist and facilitaor Teresa Gare Duke. It involves creative workshops with young migrants from Praxis' Brighter Futures programme to introduce a range of artforms to develop their campaign work on the right to privacy and a safe environment in temporary accommodation.

Home-work: connections and transitions in London, from the seventeenth century to the present

An AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award programme with three completed PhD studentships:

  • Tessa Chynoweth, Domestic Service and Domestic Space in London, 1750-1800

  • Laura Humphreys, Domestic Labour, Metropolitan Households and the Wider World, 1850-1914

  • Annabelle Wilkins, Home, Work and Migration in the East End of London since 1945

Teenage Bedrooms

What should we make of the contemporary teenage bedroom – a space dedicated to the transition between childhood and adulthood within the family home? This research explores the meaning and significance of the teenage bedroom in the context of the wider home, with outputs including a completed PhD studentship: Dr Carey Newson, Inside Teenage Bedrooms: A Cross-Generational Study of the Teenage Bedroom and its Material Culture.

Home and religion: space, practice and community in London from the seventeenth century to the present

An AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award programme with three completed PhD studentships:

  • Emily Harris, Interfaith Connections at Home: Domestic Space, Practice and Dialogue in Contemporary London

  • Miri Lawrence, Judaism in the Suburban Home, 1945-1979

  • Emily Vine, Religious Life in the Urban Home, 1600-1800