Alex Arthur-Hastie
Postgraduate researcher

Profile

Biography

I joined the department in January 2023 to complete my PhD studying contemporary Witchcraft practice among women in the UK. I am supervised by Dr Emily Nicholls and Dr Anna Strhan. My current work is resourced by my ongoing interest in empowerment, gender and feminist theory. I also hold an MSc in research methods and a BA in Social Anthropology with Sociology, and as such am also keenly interested in ethnographic methods.

Departmental roles

• Graduate Teaching Assistant (GTA)

Research

Overview

My PhD project is an exploration into the way that Witch identities are practised, resourced and experienced by women in the UK today.

It utilises ethnographic methods and participant directed photo elicitation in order to gain rich insights into the lived experiences of its participants. The project utilises this data to explore empowerment narratives in regard to contemporary witchcraft practice, as well as connected themes of neoliberalism, consumption, racism and re-narrativisation.

Contemporary western witchcraft remains an under-researched field, my work hopes to bring focus to this growing spiritual movement, and discuss its potentialities as a site of social action.

Teaching

Undergraduate

GTA for Cultivating a Sociological Imagination and Investigating Social Problems for the semester commencing September 2024.