Robert Deakin

Dr Robert Deakin is a Research Fellow at the University of Westminster and has held research positions at Loughborough University and Goldsmiths, University of London, and teaching positions at Goldsmiths, UCL and the University of Calfornia, Davis. An anthropologist by training, his research explores people’s experiences and responses to urban and social change in contexts of structural inequality. In particular, he is interested in the ways present day contestation around inequalities is shaped by affective histories and practices of heritage.

He is an ethnographer with an interest in experimenting with collaborative and multimodal practices. Alongside his academic publications in the British Journal of Sociology, Sociological Research Online and Critique of Anthropology, Robert has worked on two films, most notably the 25-minute film ‘Jimmy’s Archive’, co-directed with a research participant, which has been screened across academic conference, classroom and community settings, and published in the Journal of Anthropological Films.

Based on postdoctoral research on the social impacts of UK pub closures with Dr Thomas Thurnell-Read at Loughborough University, Robert is currently co-authoring a monograph with Bloomsbury Academic: 'Last Orders: The Story of Britain's Disappearing Pubs'.