Harald Fredheim
Lecturer in Museum Studies

Research

Overview

In my research, I work to trace connections between theory and practice - how we think about museums, heritage and archaeology and how that relates to how go about our work in these fields. I am particularly interested in public facing and participatory work and most of my research is collaborative and participatory. In general, I am more interested in people than things and the present than the past. In addition to my interests in participatory approaches, I research heritage values and try to understand why things, places and practices are important to people in different ways. I’m particularly interested in understanding how these perceptions change and are impacted by change. As a result, I like to think of heritage as a process of recycling and am interested in how heritage and museums connect with issues relating to sustainability and change. A current list of my publications is available on my Google Scholar page.

Projects

Participatory Engagement in Safeguarding and Progressing Cultural Heritage in Museums 2024-2025

The Participatory practices in museums project investigates how museums are working to embed participatory practices and the perceptions museum staff have of these efforts. This is a collaborative project with Mahidol University, Thailand, where the York part of the project is focused around a survey and follow-up interviews with museum staff in the UK and Norway. Our Thai partners are delivering a participatory action research project with the Karen people in the Chiang Mai region of Thailand.

Principal Investigators: Harald Fredheim and Patoo Cusripituck

Funder: Mahidol-York Seed Grant

Bespoke, open, collaborative and creative approaches to heritage documentation (BOCCAHD) 2023-2025

The BOCCAHD project explores ways of questioning, opening up, remixing and creatively engaging with heritage documentation. Working with heritage sector partners based in Yorkshire, the project is centred around a series of public-facing and internal workshops to share insights from project members’ and partners’ research and practice.

Principal Investigator: Harald Fredheim (University of York)

Co-Investigators: Arran Rees (University of Leeds) and Clare Fisher (University of Sheffield)

Funder: White Rose Collaboration Fund

The Museum of TAT in Leeds

The Museum of TAT (@museumtat) is a collaboration between Harald Fredheim and Lynda Burrell (Creative Director at Museumand). Together, we collect unwanted, unused and unneeded museum items and work with creatives to find ways to give new life to these items by transforming them. Our first exhibition was at Leeds Industrial Museum, where we displayed pieces that Yorkshire-based creatives Alice Bradshaw, Alex Harwood and Clare Fisher had made for us, using deaccessioned objects from Leeds Museums and Galleries.

PI: Harald Fredheim (University of York)

Co-I: Lynda Burrell (Museumand)

Funders: York Impact Accelerator Fund and University of York Economic and Social Research Council Impact Acceleration Account

Available PhD research projects

I welcome applications from prospective PhD candidates with interests in the roles heritage, museums and archaeology play in society – and in particular from those who would like to pursue research relating to the following topics:

• participatory practices and engagement
• professional practice and volunteering in the heritage sector
• heritage values and significance
• heritage and museums in relationship to sustainability and change
• collections development and contemporary collecting
• heritage policy and practice
• public archaeology

Supervision

Current research students

• Lora Lucas
• Lily Green (with Dr John Schofield and Dr Kathryn Bedford)
• Jin Fan (with Prof Lorraine Farrelly and Dr Daryl Martin)
• Qian Wang (with Prof John Schofield)
• Diana Unterhitzenberger (with Prof John Schofield)
• Marie Woods (with Prof Emma Waterton and Dr Jim Leary)

Former research students:

• Ashley Fisher (with Dr Sara Perry, Dr Gill Chitty and Dr Don Henson)

Teaching

Undergraduate

Year 3:

Presenting Archaeology and Heritage

Postgraduate

Contemporary Issues in Museums

Museums, Audiences and Interpretation

External activities

Memberships

• Association of Critical Heritage Studies
• European Association of Archaeologists
• Associate Member of the Centre for Anthropological Research on Museums and Heritage at the Humboldt University of Berlin

Editorial duties

I have peer-reviewed articles for a number of academic journals including:

• Conservation and Management of Archaeological Sites
• Heritage & Society
• Information, Communication & Society
• International Journal of Heritage Studies
• Internet Archaeology
• Journal of Cultural Heritage
• Journal of Heritage Tourism
• Journal of the Institute of Conservation
• Journal of Material Culture
• Memory Studies
• Museum & Society
• Norwegian Archaeological Review
• Planning Practice and Research
• Public Archaeology
• Studies in Conservation
• The Sociological Review

Invited talks and conferences

04/2024: Invited speaker at Åpningsseminar Sammen FF, Oslo, Norway.

11/2023: Invited speaker at Contemporary Collecting and Power, online.

04/2022: Invited Discussant at a Nordic TAG 2023 session titled Heritage at an Arm’s Length, organised by Herdis Hølleland and Elisabeth Niklasson.

09/2021: Invited keynote speaker for a FARO conference on participatory approaches to assessing significance and coping with profusion in museums, Mu.ZEE in Ostend, Belgium.

04/2021: Invited speaker for the GRASCA graduate school in contract archaeology at Linnaeus University (with Sadie Watson and Kate Faccia).

02/2019: Beyond Ethics of Convenience. Researching Digital Cultural Heritage: Ethics of Using Digital Media in Arts and Humanities Research. Manchester, UK.

10/2017: Positive Tips and Challenges of Being at the ECR Stage [Panellist]. AHRC Heritage Priority Area Postgraduate and Early Career Heritage Researcher Workshop, London, UK.