Dr Rachael Kiddey

Current Activities

Rachael Kiddey is a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship researcher based at the School of Archaeology. She has just started a project called ‘Migrant Materialities’, which focuses on the role that material culture – objects and visual culture – plays in experiences of forced displacement in Europe. Before this, Rachael was postdoctoral researcher on a joint AHRC/ESRC funded project, with the Refugee Studies Centre at the Oxford Department of International Development, called ‘Architectures of Displacement: The Experiences and Consequences of Emergency Shelter’. Rachael was previously a postgraduate student at the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, where she completed her doctoral study in 2014. Rachael is a member of the Chartered Institute for Archaeologists (CIfA) and of the Society for Historical Archaeology (SHA). Prior to returning to academia, aged 32, Rachael worked as a documentary radio producer for BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4. 

Rachael’s doctoral research involved developing methodologies for working archaeologically with homeless people; documenting how heritage can function in socially useful and transformative ways. This research was shortlisted for the Times Higher Education Award for Widening Participation Initiative of the Year 2012 and was shortlisted for the Society for Historical Archaeology’s Mark E. Mack Community Engagement Award 2016.  Rachael has published in a range of peer-reviewed journals, including the International Journal of Heritage Studies, Public Archaeology, the Journal of Contemporary Archaeology and Post-medieval Archaeology. She has also published in popular magazines, including British Archaeology and The Big Issue. Rachael has written book chapters for key edited volumes including The Oxford Handbook of Public Archaeology and The Routledge Guide to Contemporary Anthropology. Rachael’s monograph ‘Homeless Heritage’was published in 2017 Oxford University Press and is the 2019 winner of the Society for Historical Archaeology’s James Deetz Book Award. Rachael has also appeared on a range of broadcast media including BBC Inside Out West (TV) and BBC Radio 4’s ‘Thinking Allowed’. A recent output from Rachael’s research is the Made in Migration exhibition, a digital heritage tour exploring the materiality of lived experiences of forced displacement, co-curated with displaced people.