Mairi Mcfadyen

Teaching Research Assistant in Scottish Culture & Heritage

Biography

Background

Mairi McFadyen grew up in Peeblesshire, Scottish Borders, before moving to Edinburgh at the age of 18. She studied Scottish Ethnology and Scottish Literature at undergraduate level before going on to complete her Masters and Phd in the department of Celtic & Scottish Studies. Throughout her postgraduate study and since the completion of her PhD, Mairi has worked as a tutor on the undergraduate degree in Scottish Studies.

Mairi’s research interests centres on the role and value of the traditional arts - music, song, storytelling - thinking through the wider themes of cultural diversity, cultural sustainability and cultural democracy.Her PhD explored the embodied experience of traditional narrative song and the ballad imagination. A short postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute for Advanced studies in Humanities (University of Edinburgh) explored the relationship between place, local culture and storytelling and focused on the ideas of the Scottish cultural ecologist Patrick Geddes.

Outside academia Mairi has worked with several arts organisations interested in the promotion of and engagement with arts and culture in Scotland.

This article was published on