![An 1830s street scene with people shopping and children playing. Credit: Rijksmuseum](https://www.mmu.ac.uk/sites/default/files/styles/page_header_half/public/2021-06/leisure%20consumption%20material%20culture.jpg?h=7f3b84c3&itok=76NukPDr)
Research group: Leisure, consumption and material culture
Examining how past societies spent their free time and disposable income to reveal insights into their lives, identities and social spaces.
About
About our research
Our research focuses on the ways in which leisure and consumption shape people’s lives and identities.
We investigate what material culture tells us about the social and cultural practices of past societies, from the Neolithic era to the 1960s.
The research we do has three themes:
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community heritage and archaeology
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sports history
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histories of material culture and consumption
Our projects include:
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exploring the Bryn Celli Ddu Neolithic burial chamber in Anglesey
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social change in late Neolithic and Chalcolithic Britain and Ireland
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heritage and wellbeing in India and Nigeria
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the history of netball
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the gendering of physical activity in boys and girls magazines
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youth broadcasting in the 1930s and 1940s
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teenage magazines after the Second World War
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shopping in Victorian department stores
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consumption and the country house
As well as conducting innovative projects, we also supervise a diverse range of research by our postgraduate students. You can find details of PhD or masters opportunities on our study with us page. Details of our members’ research interests and specialisms can be found on their staff profiles.
We also publish details about projects our current PhD students are working on, as well as information about our history research community.
We work with local, national and international history and heritage organisations and public bodies to share our findings.
Our members edit two journals:
Our research themes
Community heritage and archaeology
In our archaeological research, we use material culture – things, places and organic remains – to study human societies from the distant past to the recent present.
We make use of a suite of approaches, from engaging volunteers in archaeological digs to 3D digital modelling and radiocarbon dating.
A central theme of our work is the interpretation, presentation and politics of the past, which means we are active in critical heritage studies and public debates about heritage.
We work with government and international bodies to explore what accessibility, interpretation, sustainability and wellbeing mean for heritage sites and practices.
Sports history
We explore the international cultural and social impact of sport and leisure activities in different time periods.
In particular, we focus on the development of sports coaching and training in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries and the emergence of women’s sports.
A big part of our work is building networks with international scholars and helping the public to engage with our research, including through collaborative platforms such as Playing Pasts.
Histories of material culture and consumption
Our work seeks to further understanding of consumption practices and spaces - from broadcasting and publishing to shopping and home furnishing.
In particular, we examine:
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the relationship between material culture, lifestyle and identity – for example in royal courts in Lorraine, France and England
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how domestic settings were shaped by taste and aesthetics, practical concerns for bodily comfort and a desire to construct home as a place with emotional resonance
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the development of print and broadcast media for young people
Selected projects
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Key publications
Day, D and Carpenter, T (2015) A History of Sports Coaching in Britain (Routledge)
- Day, D and Roberts, M (2019) Swimming Communities in Victorian England (Routledge)
- Edwards, B (2016) ‘Fragmenting Society: Pottery Biographies from Neolithic Northumberland’ in R Crellin, C Fowler and R Tipping (eds) Prehistory Without Borders (Oxbow)
- Edwards, B, Jeyacheya, J and Frasch, T (2019) ‘Evaluating the effectiveness of land-use zoning for the protection of built heritage in the Bagan Archaeological Zone, Myanmar. A satellite remote-sensing approach’, Land Use Policy, 88
- Griffiths, S and Robinson, E (2018) ‘The 8.2 ka BP Holocene climate change event and human population resilience in northwest Atlantic Europe’, Quaternary International 465
- Sayer, F and Sayer, D (2016) ‘Bones Without Barriers: The Social Impact of Digging the Dead’, in H Williams and M Giles (eds) Archaeologists and The Dead (Oxford University Press)
- Spangler, J (2017) ‘Bridging the Gaps: The Household Account Books of Marguerite de Lorraine, Duchesse d’Orléans’, Annales de l’Est, 2
- Spangler, J (2017) ‘The Chevalier de Lorraine as “Maître en Titre”: The Male Favourite as Prince, Partner and Patron’, Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles’, Bulletin du Centre de recherche du château de Versailles
- Stobart, J and Bailey, L (2018) ‘Retail revolution and the village shop, c. 1660-1860’, Economic History Review, 71:2
- Stobart, J and Rothery, M (2016) Consumption and the Country House (Oxford University Press)
- Stratton, S and Griffiths, S et al (2019) ‘The emergence of extramural cemeteries in neolithic southeast Europe: a formally modelled chronology for Cernica, Romania’, Radiocarbon, 61:1
- Tebbut, M (2017) ‘Listening to Youth? BBC programming for adolescents in the 1930s and 1940s’, History Workshop Journal, 84
Organisations we work with
![Arts & Humanities Research Council logo](/sites/default/files/styles/logo_scalable/public/2020-12/ahrc-logo.png?itok=m8sSeCqM)
Arts & Humanities Research Council
![Logo of English Heritage](/sites/default/files/styles/logo_scalable/public/2021-05/English%20Heritage%20logo.png?itok=4ck76zt0)
English Heritage
![Logo of CADW](/sites/default/files/styles/logo_scalable/public/2021-05/CADW%20logo.png?itok=M-ayCSp6)
CADW
![Logo of the National Trust](/sites/default/files/styles/logo_scalable/public/2021-04/The%20National%20Trust.jpg?itok=mzv_d_3o)
The National Trust
Contact us
You can contact individual members of the team through their staff profiles.
For general enquiries, please contact our research group leads Dr Ben Edwards and Prof Jon Stobart.