I’m a PhD student researching symbolic heritage and the reconstruction of identity. I studied heritage visitor behaviour for my Masters degree at the University of Surrey where I wrote my dissertation on the heritage visitors’ experiences at national heritage sites in the UK. My PhD research aims to investigate how the demolition and reconstruction of South Korea's symbolic colonial heritage buildings affect the reconstruction of identity. 

It is true that most people would agree on the positive impact of cultural heritage preservation. However, some heritage, such as colonial buildings and monuments, has been deliberately destroyed in order to revise people’s memories where identity is endangered. Given this fact, by focusing on the concepts of environmental psychology and social psychology, my research investigates both the empirical and theoretical relationship between symbolic colonial heritage and people’s identity, with an emphasis on the ways meaning change in a Korean context. This will allow for an increased understanding of social debates about colonial heritage including contemporary conservation, competing values, meanings, and identity production.

Supervised by  Prof David Uzzell