Selected research projects
It's often difficult to describe succinctly what my research interests are, because I am interested in so many things. However, it's fair to say that my research often focuses on how people make the new from the everyday. I explore everyday creativity and engagements with the mundane and I approach from different disciplinary perspectives including creative practice, applied linguistics and ethnography. Underpinning all my research is attention to interactions, texts and materiality in terms of artworks and creative outputs.
I have led and participated in a range of research projects, including international research collaborations. You can find information about my current and recent projects below. My research sits at the intersections of language and the arts - I was co-founder and co-convenor of the AILA Research Network in Creative Inquiry and Applied Linguistics from 2018-2021, with Lou Harvey and Emilee Moore. Our work in the network was pivotal for bringing creative arts-focused research into the field of Applied Linguistics and making space for creative collaborations and expanding beyond more traditional research contexts. I have written about this with Lou Harvey here, here and with Lou Harvey and Gameli Tordzro here. The AILA network has now been merged with the AHRC LILA (Learning at the Intersections of Language and the Arts) network, for which I was advisor and key contributor. I organised and led a double international colloquium at the AILA World Congress in Groningen, Netherlands, 2020 (rescheduled to 2021 due to COVID19). With Lou Harvey I was awarded competitive funding from BAAL and Cambridge University Press to run a two-day seminar on creative inquiry in July 2019. My work in this area has international reach and I am regularly invited to be keynote speaker at conferences, to give research seminars and as invited lecturer.
A selection of recent research projects are listed below.
Re-Emerge (The Art House) (2022-2023)
I am lead researcher and evaluator for the Re-Emerge Arts and Health programme led by The Art House Wakefield. This is a programme of creative workshops for people to re-engage with life after COVID19, funded by NHS Charities Together. I also received support from HEIF (£2,500) for a public engagement event and two artistic publications and the social research internship scheme (£1,500) for two interns to support the research. You can read a blog post about this research in process here. In November 2022 we held a public talk at The Art House for the Festival of Social Sciences Understanding Society programme (c. £1000). (Total funding £75,000 + £5,000).
Visiting Researcher, Jyvaskyla University (October 2021)
I was funded visiting researcher at the Centre for Applied Language Studies, Jyvaskyla University, in October 2021, working with Professor Sari Poyhonen and Dr Saara Jantti (read more here). (Total funding from Jyvaskyla University 3,000 Euro).
Multilingual Streets (2019-2021) (PI)
Funded by the AHRC Open World Research Initiative Cross-Language Dynamics Reshaping Community: Multilingual Communities strand, this project explored young people's engagements with language(s) in everyday life through focusing on linguistic landscapes and creative practice. Outputs include art installations and a project toolkit. The project was in collaboration with Yaron Matras and included artist-researcher Louise Atkinson. You can read a blog post about this project here. (Total funding from AHRC OWRI Cross Language Dynamics £30,000 FEC).
StoryBox (2020-2021) (co-I)
This digital project was funded by XR Stories and focused on children's engagement and play with a digital storytelling app and texts. The PI was Becky Parry and the team included Fiona Scott, Yinka Olusoga, Cath Bannister and Julia Bishop. (Total funding from AHRC XR Stories £100,000 FEC).
From left to right: Zhu Hua, Jessica Bradley, Linda Persson, Yasmin Nicholas, Elina Karadzhova and Louise Atkinson
With Zhu Hua and Louise Atkinson, we developed a call for artists to submit creative work on the theme of multilingualism (see Bradley et al., 2022; Bradley & Atkinson, forthcoming 2022). Project outputs included a digital exhibition, launched at the British Association for Applied Linguistics Annual Meeting 2019 at Manchester Met University. We published a chapter about this project in an edited collection here and we have a chapter in 2023 (details of the book here). The project was supported by BAAL, CuratorSpace and the School of Education, University of Sheffield.
Migration and Settlement: Extending the Welcome (2016-2017) (co-PI)
Working with James Simpson, Sam McKay and Faceless Arts, we explored possibilities for creative methods in adult migrant ESOL. This was funded by the University of Leeds ESRC LSSI Impact Acceleration Account. (Total funding £15,000).
Silk screens created by Faceless Arts artists working with communities in Leeds and Wakefield, 2016
Migration and Home: Welcome in Utopia (2016) (co-PI)
Funded by the AHRC Connected Communities 'Utopias Festival 2016' I worked with James Simpson and Sam McKay to consider concepts of welcome and belonging in dialogue with 'utopia', including through creative practice and performance (see McKay & Bradley, 2016). The project partner was Faceless Arts. You can read an open access article by Sam McKay and me here. (Total funding from AHRC Connected Communities £20,000).
Image shows collage based on Linguistic Landscapes of Harehills created by young people as part of the LangScape Curators project in 2016 and a collage created by Louise Atkinson.
LangScape Curators (2015-2017) (PI)
This pilot project, with Emilee Moore, James Simpson and Louise Atkinson, (see Bradley, 2017b; Bradley et al., 2018; Bradley & Atkinson, 2020) enabled us to explore how we might bring participatory research with young people and creative methods into linguistic landscapes research. It was funded by Educational Engagement Social Sciences at the University of Leeds. A number of publications have arisen from this project including Bradley et al., 2018 and Bradley & Atkinson, 2020. (Total funding c. £6,000).
Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities (2014-2018) (Doctoral Researcher)
I was funded doctoral researcher at the University of Leeds for this AHRC Translating Cultures large grant project led by Professor Angela Creese. My PhD was entitled 'Translation and Translanguaging: Investigating Linguistic and Cultural Transformations in Superdiverse Wards in Four UK Cities' (see Bradley, 2017a; Bradley, 2018; Bradley & Moore, 2018; Bradley, 2020). (Total funding c. £54,000).