Dina Belluigi

Dina’s research and practice grapples with the conditions for academic citizenship, participation and development; and the question/s of authoring/ authority and representation within and beyond institutional borderlines. Underpinning these foci is a concern with the ways in which interpretative frameworks, and socio-cultural dynamics and machinations constrain or enable agency, and the significance for critical consciousness and social justice.

 

Dina is based in the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work (SSESW) at Queen’s University Belfast, where she is Fellow of the George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice. She is currently the Professor of Authorship, Representation and Transformation in Academia at Queen’s University Belfast (Northern Ireland); Visiting Professor at Crishet, Nelson Mandela University and Visiting Professor at the School of Women’s Studies, Jadavpur University (India). She was a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Research, Teaching and Learning (CHERTL) at Rhodes University for over a decade; and prior to that taught at the School of Fine Art at the same institution. She read for her transdisciplinary PhD in Fine Art and Higher Education Studies at Kingston University (London), under the supervision of Prof Emeritus Bernadette Blair and Ann Hulland.

 

Her background is in fine art, having taught fine art studio practice as a practicing artist, and led research projects on into the hidden curriculum and assessment in creative arts education. This interest in creative arts education, and the politics and possibilities of representation/ memorialisation has continued in much of her research, from arts-based methodologies through to visual studies and creative arts research.

 

She was a founding member of Advancing Critical University Studies Across Africa (with Andre Keet); a founding member of the African Scholars Research Network (with Felicity Kalu and Gift Sotonye-Frank); and serves as an elected member of the Governing Council for the Society for Research in Higher Education (SRHE), and on the Scholars at Risk Committee Ireland (SAR Ireland). She serves in a range of advisory roles, and contributes voluntarily to a range of organisations and collectives.