Thesis and Research Data Repository Leeds Beckett University
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Ladders and Wedges: Challenging Marginalisation in the Dramatic Arts
No full textAt the time of writing, fault lines in the creative industries are clearer than they have, arguably, ever been. Who is afforded the ability to be included, to make decisions, to make work, has come into sharp relief; highlighting those who are excluded or at the margins. For those, like me, who have been – or are considered as being – at the margins, this is not a startling discovery.
This thesis offers insight and strategies for disrupting marginalisation; offering starting points, evidencing benefits and giving theoretical underpinning for a reversal. These are focalised through three research questions: How can curricula, especially that used in actor training, be diversified and made more inclusive?; Why is representation of identities that are ‘on the margins’ important and how can this inclusion and diversification be sustainably achieved?; How can equitable access to performative work be fostered in its creation and dissemination?
Part one comprises nine solo authored, peer reviewed, published research papers. Taking, in the main, an ethnographic approach, these published works encapsulate professional and pedagogical practice with research led conclusions, suggestions and provocations to both training/educational establishments, theatres and theatre (and performance) makers.
Part two, the exegesis, offers the rationale for, and coherence of, the published work. In a timeline of significant Benchmarks, my practice, pedagogy and research are mapped against the publication of the submitted papers. The Introduction offers reasons why I am, and have been, the best person to undertake this research, which champions de-marginalisation. Discussion of my lived experience, the reasoning that my research needs to exist, as well as explorations of intersectionality and equality, diversity and inclusivity are set against the context of creating a world that my marginalised 15-year-old self would have hugely benefited from. Pulling it together looks to the methodological basis and conceptions that the published works in part one sit in, develop and are reliant on, offering my methodological praxis, conceptualised as a tripartite. Waymarkers reviews, chronologically, eight works from across disciplines which have been an influence on the published work and give rise to the ‘golden threads’ that thematically bind my work. Asking questions, the lynchpin of the exegesis, through the three research questions, situate my contributions against and in conversation with the waymarkers and recent literature, evidencing the novelty and positive contribution(s) that have been made in, by and through my work. My Conclusions extend the journeying metaphor seen throughout, offering coalescence of my contributions and suggestions of where focus needs to be next placed to create and sustain these much-needed changes. Finally, the Epilogue maps the lineage that my work speaks, and adds, to.</p
The Active Gaming Spectrum
No full textThe evidence base on physical inactivity, sedentary behaviour and high body mass index is broad and strong, highlighting a negative impact across the economy, our health, and our mental wellbeing. Technology and screens are a pervasive part of this problem. Video games are a prevalent, powerful and persuasive use of technology. Active video games demonstrate clear potential to facilitate positive change. The active gaming evidence base has terminological and methodological issues. Active video games have issues of quality and variety, and in the facilitation of physical activity, whilst the supporting hardware has practicality issues. The purpose of this thesis is to leverage the issues identified to refine and unify the field-related terminology and technology, creating a spectrum of active gaming. The spectrum is informed and presented through a dialectically pluralistic and pragmatic narrative review. The Active Gaming Spectrum represents purposeful, strategic, and pragmatic categorisation of the following ordered terms: Non-active video games; virtual reality; active video games; location-based games; technology dependant augmented/built-environment games; asynchronous active games; esports; technology independent augmented/built-environment games; gamification; sport and exercise games. Several visuals are presented, showing the Active Gaming Spectrum, a practical decision tree for categorisation, and an example list of category-specific games (see figures 2-4). Use cases for several stakeholders are presented, such as identifying new research projects, new product development opportunities, and behaviour change facilitation in applied practice. Future directions are proposed that build on the foundation of the Active Gaming Spectrum. This includes iteration of the spectrum by seeking expert opinion and then consensus, developing case study protocols for each game, building a research network, identifying project management efficiencies and funding models, and solving the trilemma of speed, scale, and rigour. This thesis offers a challenge to the dominant paradigms of active gaming, presenting a pragmatic first step towards a better system.</p
Porosity, agency and religious gazes in British travel accounts of the long nineteenth century
No full textThis interdisciplinary study applies insights from the ‘new materialisms’ and related ideas from assemblage theory, Actor-Network Theory, Entanglement theory, ecological and cognitive psychology, and anthropology, with the ‘material turn’ in religious studies, to the study of British travel writing in the long nineteenth century. Religion and theories of the object offer a fertile but underdeveloped field for scholarship of travel literature. Religion structured the lifeworlds of travellers and the people they met, complicating the hegemony of colonial and tourist gazes, yet has not had the scholarly prominence it warrants. This thesis shows the embodied and interpersonal operation of religious gazes, and the agency of religious objects in events of travel. A ‘flat ontology’, placing the human and nonhuman, the material and discursive, on the same plane of agency, shows agency in events of travel to be emergent, distributed and intersubjective.
While considering a range of accounts of travel, the thesis gives extended analyses of six British travellers’ published accounts of travel to Abyssinia, Persia and Japan, countries free from formal European imperial control. The thesis deconstructs ‘the traveller’, as a social being, into an ‘assemblage’ of co-opted human and nonhuman agents. The traveller is ‘porous’ to the travel environment and ‘extended’ into it. The travel account, as a networked textual object, mediates the traveller and other agents in the event of travel. Building on these foundations, the thesis examines the traveller’s religious gaze, constituted both by the traveller’s disposition to see and their visual behaviour as they encountered religious spaces, events, declarations, rituals, objects, and persons (human and supernatural) in different bodily, affective, social and cognitive configurations. ‘Religious’ entities – now including amuletic scrolls, the Bible, Providence and sorcery – exercised agency in events of travel, and left their traces in accounts of it, through complex entanglements with the traveller’s subjectivity.</p
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and events: professional insights through the lens of stakeholder theory
No full textAs Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to reshape service industries globally, the events sector stands at a pivotal point in its digital evolution. This exploratory study examines the perceptions and preparedness of UK-based event professionals to incorporate AI into design, planning, and management practices. Framed through stakeholder theory and extending the conceptual foundations laid by Neuhofer et al. (2020), the research explores how AI influences stakeholder dynamics, value co-creation, and ethical engagement within event ecosystems.Drawing on qualitative interviews with twenty-six experienced event professionals in the United Kingdom, conducted between January and April 2023, the study finds that professionals simultaneously welcome AI's potential for personalisation and operational efficiency, while voicing concerns about over-automation, diminished creativity, and stakeholder exclusion. Building on Neuhofer et al.’s conceptual scenarios, this research grounds those trajectories in lived practitioner experience, offering empirical insight into how AI adoption is shaped by sectoral context and stakeholder influence.A key contribution is the development of the AI in Events Stakeholder Framework, which reconfigures traditional stakeholder models to incorporate AI-specific actors, such as technology developers, ethical advocates, and regulatory bodies. This is further operationalised through the integration of Mitchell et al.’s (1997) stakeholder salience framework, which reveals how power, legitimacy, and urgency dynamically influence AI governance across different event formats. The study underscores the need for inclusive implementation strategies and targeted upskilling, emphasising that AI integration must align with stakeholder values to preserve the industry’s human-centric identity while enabling responsible innovation.</p
Contractors’ Health and Safety (H&S) Performance on an Implementing Agent’s Projects
No full textThe study sought to develop a strategy to engender health and safety (H&S) compliance on an implementing agent’s (IA) projects. The IA’s project reports indicate that hazards and injuries frequently occur on their projects. The study adopted the quantitative method, which entailed a questionnaire survey of various project stakeholders to determine H&S practices and the degree of H&S compliance. The salient findings include: procurement processes include H&S; contractors undertake H&S training; workers require further development in terms of hazard identification and risk assessment (HIRA); contractor management is committed to and involved in H&S; H&S meetings are held regularly; H&S audits are conducted regularly, however, H&S inspections less so, and workers do participate in H&S. Conclusions include: construction H&S is a multi-stakeholder H&S issue; IAs can include H&S as a project value and influence project H&S; the IA that is the subject of the study is committed to H&S, and the IA has endeavoured to realise better H&S practices. Recommendations include contractors should focus on conducting HIRAs relative to every activity, more worker HIRA training, and developing workers’ ability to identify hazards and ability to conduct HIRAs, and more frequent H&S inspections by all site management staff.</p
Evaluation of Energy Recovery from Constructed Wetlands-Microbial Fuel Cell Systems
No full textConstructed wetlands integrated with microbial fuel cells (CW-MFCs) represent an innovative approach to wastewater treatment, combining ecological water purification with sustainable energy recovery. This study evaluates the performance and efficiency of CW-MFC systems in terms of energy generation, considering the ph of the wastewater and varying environmental temperatures, and the effects of CW-MFC size on power generation. This study also evaluates the CW-MFCs' efficiency under different operating conditions. For example, the planting of bamboo in two of the pilot-scale experimental rigs. The CW-MFC system degrades organic pollutants in agricultural wastewater and generates electricity by leveraging the metabolic activity of electrochemically active microorganisms. Key performance indicators, including power density, chemical oxygen demand (COD) removal, and nutrient recovery, were analysed across electrode materials, substrate types, and operational configurations. Four pilot-scale CW-MFCs were designed with gravel, sharp sand and garden soil with electrodes embedded at aerobic and anaerobic sections of the CW-MFC to pick up and transmit electrons. Fargesia Black Pearl bamboo was planted on two of the rigs to create variables, and the other two were left without plants as a control measure. The bamboo is added to the variables to see the effects of the bamboo root exudates on the electric generation capability of the CW-MFC. Voltage was measured hourly from 16:00:00 on 11/01/2025 to 15:00:00 on 02/03/2025. A total of 1,200 entries were recorded for each rig and analysed with the graphs below.On average, the control rigs generated a minimum of 0.7 Volts and a maximum of 0.88 Volts, which is a 25% increase, while the variable rigs generated a minimum of 0.33 Volts and a maximum of 0.9 Volts, which is a 177.4% increase. The variables started off with low voltage generation and gained about a 177.4% increase within the period of the experiment. This shows that the bamboo plant has an influence on the amount of current generated by CW-MFC.This evaluation highlights the potential of CW-MFCs as a sustainable solution for renewable energy production that can be utilised to power low-energy-consuming gadgets in farms. Even with the results from the experiment, some of the challenges for real-life applications in agriculture would be low energy efficiency and scalability. Therefore, future research should focus on enhancing design for real-life applications, scaling up rigs for practical applications in agriculture, and integrating CW-MFCs with other renewable technologies. This study underscores the feasibility of CW-MFCs in advancing the nexus of clean water and energy sustainability for agriculture while addressing global environmental.</p
Going Nuts: A Comparative and Business Study on Greener Alternatives to Traditional Plastic Sachets using Coconut Husks
No full textThe global challenge of escalating solid waste generation, fueled by rising consumption patterns and population growth demands innovative solutions that balance societal needs with environmental responsibility. This paper investigates a significant contributor to plastic waste in the Philippines—single-use plastic sachets. Sachets comprise over 52% of the country’s plastic waste stream, calling for sustainable solutions to address this growing problem. In this light, this paper presents the feasibility of utilizing coconut husks, a readily available agricultural waste product, as a sustainable alternative material for sachet production. To facilitate a comparative analysis between plastic and coconut sachets, 3D models of both materials were created using SolidWorks. The resulting sustainability analysis of the 3D models revealed that coconut husk sachets offer significant environmental benefits, boasting a 2x improvement in carbon emission, 4x improvement in energy consumption, and a 0.5x and 0.25x improvement in air and water pollution compared to traditional plastic sachets at the expense of a 53% estimated production cost increase. To address this cost hike, the paper proposes a cradle-to-cradle business plan that leverages the environmental benefits of coconut husk sachets as a marketing strategy. The proposed business plan emphasizes increased social responsibility, brand image improvement, and future-proofing against stricter environmental regulations to alleviate the risen production cost. Ultimately, coconut husk sachets were argued to be a viable and sustainable alternative to traditional plastic sachets. Future research is recommended to further characterize the properties of coconut husk bioplastic film, conduct more market analysis to obtain more concrete cost values, and explore investment opportunities for establishing a large-scale production model.</p
Human-Centric Innovation in Construction: A Review of Industry 5.0 and Society 5.0 Applications
No full textThe Architecture, Engineering, Construction, and Operations (AECO) industry faces increasing complexity and inefficiencies, often hindered by delayed adoption of digital technologies. Tools such as Building Information Modelling (BIM), the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) offer significant potential to improve productivity, collaboration, and cost-effectiveness across project lifecycles. However, their integration remains limited compared to other sectors. Industry 5.0 and Society 5.0 present opportunities to transform the AECO industry by combining advanced technologies with human-centric and sustainable values. Despite the relevance, their applications within AECO are underexplored, necessitating a structured evaluation of the enablers, barriers, and pathways for adoption. This study systematically reviews existing literature using the PRISMA methodology and bibliometric analysis to assess the state of digital transformation in AECO through the lenses of Industry 5.0 and Society 5.0. Key technologies, implementation challenges, and strategies are identified to guide future research directions and practical integration, paving the way for a resilient and sustainable built environment. The findings also underscore the growing need to embed digital transformation within supportive policy frameworks and equity-driven workforce development strategies.</p
Assessing the impact of air source heat pump retrofits on indoor environment and energy consumption in UK homes
No full textTo support the UK target of net zero emissions by 2050, the Government aims to install 600,000 heat pumps annually by 2028. This study examines the impact of air source heat pump (ASHP) retrofits on indoor comfort and household electricity consumption across 16 diverse dwellings in an Oxford neighbourhood. A mixed-method approach combined household surveys with continuous monitoring of indoor and outdoor temperature and relative humidity. Data were collected over two periods: 1 December 2024 to 6 February 2025, when heat pumps supplied space heating and hot water, and 21 June to 31 August 2024, when they provided hot water only. Smart meter data from three homes offered additional insights into electricity consumption patterns. Indoor temperatures remained above the World Health Organisation recommended minimum of 18°C, but often below the 20°C threshold advised for vulnerable groups in winter. Surveys indicated improved comfort and satisfaction post-installation, with most users finding the systems easy to operate and willing to shift energy use, though challenges in maintaining consistent room temperatures were reported. Mean daily electricity consumption ranged from 18.6 to 24.3 kWh in winter and 4.10 to 10.62 kWh in summer. Peak demand generally occurred outside the 4–7 pm peak period, with the highest usage (0.85 kWh) observed at 7 pm in one dwelling, likely reflecting lifestyle factors. These findings highlight the influence of ASHPs on indoor environments and energy demand, underlining the role of time-of-use tariffs and smart controls in promoting off-peak usage. The study provides evidence to guide scalable, equitable strategies for UK residential heat decarbonisation.</p
Taxonomy of Risks Militating Against Nigerian Construction Industry: Setting Research Agenda for Sustainable Construction Infrastructure Development Projects in Nigeria
No full textSustainable construction infrastructure projects are among the 2043 visions of the federal government of Nigerian. This vision, aims to elevate the country's infrastructure stock to 70% of GDP, is at substantial risk of success due to heavy financial losses and time-consuming dispute resolution processes. Project management experts believe that such financial losses and time-consuming dispute resolution processes are capable of risking the success of the infrastructure projects. However, there is gap a in current research studies regarding risk management in Nigerian Construction Industry (NCI) in that majority of the studies are fragmented, with findings or conclusions on risk factors that are not attributed to any specific characteristic of the NCI. This makes any measures to address the risk factors a difficult undertaking. This paper addresses this gap through a systematic literature review of the extant studies on the NCI. The outcome is a taxonomy of the risk factors under financial risks, operational risks, projects risks, regulatory risks, and strategic risks. The taxonomy sets a research agenda on sustainable construction infrastructure project in the NCI as it can assist in developing a model, framework, or policy tailored to the financial, operational, project, regulatory, or strategic aspect of the industry.</p