Dr Bethany Robertson

Profile

I specialise in understanding the role of identities and inequalities in agricultural change and rural futures. My research and teaching interests include rural sociology, farming cultures, gender studies and human-animal relations. Embedded within this work, I have experience collaborating with policy-makers in food and farming and organising arts-based public engagement activities. I contribute to a range of undergraduate and postgraduate modules in Sociology & Social Policy across fields such as identities & inequalities and qualitative research methods.

Responsibilities

• Widening Participation Officer
• Assessment Lead

Research interests

• Gender, the body and identity
• Rural sociology, food and farming
• Work, employment and inequality
• Human-animal relations
• Ethnographic and feminist methodologies

I joined the School of Sociology and Social Policy in February 2021 first as a postdoctoral research fellow working on the ESRC funded project ‘Feeding the Nation: Seasonal Migrant Workers and Food Security during the COVID-19 Pandemic.’ The research explores the adaptations of seasonal migrant farm workers and farmers following international travel restrictions of Covid and the post-Brexit immigration system. In 2022 I completed research alongside Dr Roxana Barbulescu for the Low Pay Commission about the impact of the Accommodation Offset policy on farm employers and workers.

Prior to joining Leeds, I worked on a British Academy funded project at the University of Liverpool which examined the ways farmers engage with social media and how narratives of farming are communicated online.

I have a PhD in Sociology from the University of York which explores the experiences of women farmers in England to understand the embodiment of farming and the negotiation of gender identities. My thesis is an ethnographic study, comprising of on-farm interviews and observations at agricultural shows.

Throughout my MA in Social Research I developed expertise in human-animal relations by examining university students’ management of a long distance relationship with their pets. This research paved the way for an interest in multi-species methodologies and understanding how interactions with animals shape the work and identities of farmers in my doctoral thesis.

Qualifications

• PhD Sociology
• MA Social Research
• BA Sociology

Professional memberships

• British Sociological Association
• Fellow of Advance HE
• European Society for Rural Sociology

Student education

I am passionate about enhancing student education and belonging through challenging hidden curriculums and harnessing inclusive pedagogies. For example, I have co-designed and delivered a programme of workshops to embed academic literacies in the curriculum for first year students to support their transition to undergraduate studies.

I teach across undergraduate and postgraduate modules, as well as supervising dissertation research projects. I am Module Lead for Food & Society, Debates in Childhood & Youth and Researching Gender/Feminist Research Methods.

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Studies