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Biography

Hannah Ayres (she/her) is a final year part-time PhD student based in the department of Sociology at the University of Warwick. She is researching queer re/presentation in museums and how queer individuals create, critique and internalise these re/presentations. She has previously taught on modules to do with sexuality, gender, research methods, human nature, selfhood, media, and queer theory. Hannah has also helped to produce guidance for the University of Warwick on inclusive teaching for trans and gender-diverse students. One of Hannah's proudest achievements is the co-creation of queer/disrupt - this group focuses on making queer knowledge, topics, and histories accessible for a general audience. Hannah was a co-convenor of the group from July 2019 to March 2022. Hannah is currently the co-host of Theoryish alongside Paola Medina-Gonzalez. This podcast aims to bring theory to a wider audience in the most relevant, interesting, and accessible way.

In October 2024, Hannah became an IAS Early Career Fellow.

Research

Queer history; public history; queer theory; memory studies; visual sociology; gender and social theory.

PhD Research

This project offers an investigation into queer and trans* museum re/presentation in England. In 2017, there was a boom in re/presentational practices, that came as a result of the institutional celebrations of the 50^thanniversary of the partial decriminalisation of homosexuality in the UK. This research offers an in-depth look into what happens when visibility, in part, has already been achieved, situating this analysis in four key areas: institutional power and normativity; space and time; affect and emotion, and COVID-19, Black Trans Lives Matter, and queer futurity. Employing a qualitative multi-method approach, this research entails photovoice, photo-elicitation, semi-structured interviews, focus groups, qualitative surveys, and documentary data. This multi-vocal data set offers critical insight into how queer and trans* museum staff and audiences create, critique, and understand re/presentational politics. Informed by queer, trans*, and feminist methodologies, the project looks at eight unique case study sites, including The British Museum, and the Museum of Transology.

Queer and trans* people increasingly want more re/presentation, but re/presentation is spatio-temporally mediated through the institutional practices, norms, and histories of museums. This warps and changes re/presentation, often leaving it unsatisfactory to those it aims to re/present. Re/presentation in and of itself is not always a radical, progressive or disruptive act. This process of mediation tempers re/presentational power, and queer and trans* re/presentation can propagate other forms of power including white supremacy and homonormativity. The final chapter of this thesis considers the devastating effect of COVID-19 on museums in the UK, reflecting upon disruptive challenges the pandemic wrought. This disruption also brought along new understandings of museums and their purpose, that allow us to dream of different futures for museum practice.

My supervisors are Dr Cath Lambert and Dr Laura Schwartz. I was previously supervised by Dr Meleisa Ono-George.