Biography

Kelsey Hanson is a qualitative researcher and ethnographer focusing on collective memory and placemaking in conflict and post-conflict environments, specifically Northern Ireland. Previous work has centered on City Centre Belfast and how the city’s nighttime economy has been impacted by neoliberal development, lingering spatial division, and memories of the Troubles. Her most recent publication (Hanson, 2024) analyzed 50th anniversary coverage of Derry’s Bloody Sunday, drawing attention to how memory was evoked in publications across Ireland, Northern Ireland, and the United Kingdom.

Her current dissertation research is an interdisciplinary ethnography examining place, memory, and the body. Based on fieldwork completed in fall 2024, her dissertation asks how memory impacts spatial movement and examines how individuals and families remember and navigate space and create new forms of place when actively recollecting Troubles-era memories.

She is a former journalist and radio producer with Philadelphia’s local NPR affiliate, WHYY, where she produced award-winning live and edited public affairs broadcasts. She regularly incorporates this multimedia experience into her academic work and in the journalism and media courses she teaches.