Phiona Stanley
phiona stanley

Dr Phiona Stanley PhD, MEd, MA (hons), RSA Dip, SFHEA, FRGS.

Associate Professor

 0131 455 4405

  P.Stanley@napier.ac.uk

  

Biography

My work is all about mobilities and how people engage in 'intercultural' settings in the broadest sense: heterogeneous assemblages of humans, non-humans, and artefacts. This includes research and teaching on working abroad, intercultural education, and tourism, particularly outdoors sport/leisure/mobilities. Within my broader focus on how culture operates, I'm particularly interested in gender, embodiment, and other normative 'rules'. I'm also very interested in innovative ways of doing, writing, and teaching qualitative research methods, including narrative storytelling and evocative and creative writing within academic texts. My theoretical paradigm is critical, which is to say that I'm particularly focused on how power relations operate. To date, I have published five books (three sole-authored monographs and two edited anthologies) and around forty peer-reviewed articles; I have also presented my research at many international conferences/symposia, invited guest lectures/keynotes, and public engagement events. Click on the 'outputs' and 'recognition' tabs if you want to know more about these.

I currently lead a big, first-year module that focuses on interculturality in business, sport, tourism, and other settings; it runs in both T1 and T2 on the Craiglockhart campus. In addition, I'm developing core modules for our brand new suite of undergraduate degree programmes in intercultural business communication (IBC). Edinburgh Napier is the only Scottish university offering IBC at undergraduate level, so these are exciting times!

My background: Before coming to Edinburgh Napier in 2019, I worked as a Senior Lecturer at UNSW Sydney (2012-2018), where I mainly taught postgraduate courses. Prior to that, I was a Lecturer at the University of South Australia (2006-2011). I've supervised doctoral students to completion (see the 'postgrad' tab) and I've been an external PhD examiner for various universities in the UK, New Zealand, and Australia. I'm also a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy/Advance HE (SFHEA) and I've won awards for my postgrad and undergrad teaching. Pre-PhD, I built a career in language education, working in the UK, Peru, Poland, Qatar, China, and Australia.

Professional working languages: English and Spanish.

School

News

Events

Esteem

Conference Organising Activity

  • Chair: The role and nature of selfhood in autoethnography (conference strand). European Congress on Qualitative Inquiry, University of Portsmouth (2023)
  • Dark Tourism Research Symposium: Memory, Pilgrimage & the Digital Realm (co-convenor, with Craig Wight and Anne Schwan, 2022). https://www.napier.ac.uk/research-and-innovation/research-search/events/dark-tourism-research-symposium-memory-pilgrimage-and-the-digital-realm
  • Panel chair: Queering queerness (Critical Autoethnography Conference, Melbourne, 2021)
  • Slow/alternative tourisms panel (chair). "Not costing the earth?". European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Malta (2020)
  • Messodology: Celebrating the messiness of qualitative enquiry (co-chair, conference segment), European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, University of Edinburgh 2019
  • Gender and performativity (chaired conference panel). CEAD, Santiago de Chile, Universidad de Santiago, 2018.
  • Chair: Materiality (conference strand), Critical Autoethnography Conference, University of Auckland (Aotearoa/New Zealand; 2018)
  • Chair: Autoethnography across cultures (conference panel). International Congress on Qualitative Inquiry, University of Illinois (2017).

 

Editorial Activity

  • Book reviewer: Routledge Singapore
  • Book reviewer: Cambridge University Press
  • Book reviewer: Routledge, UK
  • Editorial Board, Journal of Autoethnography (since journal inception, 2020)

 

External Examining/Validations

  • External PhD Examiner: Rasoul Jafari, Deakin University (Australia, 2023). Thesis: Subnational ethnolinguistic diversity in the Iranian diaspora: A critical study of Iranian Azerbaijanis in Australia.
  • External PhD Examiner: Ahn Ngoc Quynh Phan, University of Auckland (New Zealand, 2022). Thesis: Moving though space, pausing in place: Vietnamese doctoral sojourners' transnational experiences of identity (re)negotiation, belonging, and home.
  • External PhD Examiner: Alison Williams, University of Warwick (UK, 2021). Thesis: A critical autoethnography of fostering transformative relationships in a neoliberal university.
  • External DPsych Examiner: Ryan Bittinger, University of Edinburgh (UK, 2020). Thesis: Homos in the woods: Queer shame and body shame in the context of trekking experiences.

 

Fellowships and Awards

  • Book prize nomination: An autoethnography of Fitting In (2022, Routledge) nominated for 2023 International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry: Qualitative Book Award (University of Illinois)
  • Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
  • 2020 Winner of Edinburgh Napier Students' Association (ENSA) Excellence Award: Best Lecturer/Tutor (Management)
  • Honorary Fellow of the University of Edinburgh Centre for Creative-Relational Inquiry.
  • Senior Fellow of Advance HE
  • Winner of "New Philosopher" Essay Prize ($1000) (2018)
  • Book prize nomination: Intercultural competence on the Gringo Trail? (2017, Routledge) nominated for 2017 International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry: Qualitative Book Award (University of Illinois)
  • Nominated by students and shortlisted for Vice Chancellor's Prize for Teaching Excellence (UNSW, Sydney; 2017)
  • Winner of UNSW ECR Teaching Award (2014; Dean's Award, Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences)
  • Book prize nomination: A Critical Ethnography of Westerners Teaching English in China (2013, Routledge) nominated for 2013 Best Monograph Prize (ECR category), Sydney Writers' Festival.
  • Winner of International Education Association of Australia "Outstanding Postgraduate Thesis" Award 2011
  • Winner of Monash University Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal 2010
  • Australian Postgraduate Award (PhD Scholarship) (2007-2010)

 

Invited Speaker

  • Autoethnography and Selfhood: University of Edinburgh Seminars: Autoethnographic Research Methods in the Social Sciences (2024)
  • On "making it" in academia and on writing about such things autoethnographically: Leeds Beckett University, PhD Seminars, School of Events, Tourism and Hospitality Management. (2023)
  • Writing Autoethnography: University of Edinburgh Seminars: Autoethnographic Research Methods in the Social Sciences (2023)
  • Author Spotlight: An Autoethnography of Fitting In: On Spinsterhood, Fatness and Backpacker Tourism (Invited keynote, 2022 International Symposium on Autoethnography and Narrative (ISAN), Florida/Online.
  • Netnography research methods lecture series (Pandemic shorts): PART ONE: https://youtu.be/FDrRuo5DKkU?si=7dgcskHySI1eDVX5 PART TWO: https://youtu.be/8i6H3Vvw0_4?si=y6B9mAibw-X6D1jy PART THREE: https://youtu.be/9j33KjrySVI?si=owIXu9xuOknkJUqT PART FOUR: https://youtu.be/QBjhLFYZD0g?si=kljBq9Fi55plldtz (2021)
  • Critical intercultural competence and the learning of Spanish on "The Gringo Trail". York St John University. Languages and Linguistics Colloquium Series (2021).
  • A trouble walks into a bar: Standup and therapy (Edinburgh Futures Institute, Firestarter Festival). Invited guest presentation (2021)
  • Unlikely hikers? Autoethnographies of unlikely human bodies in the outdoors. (Invited guest lecture at the Centre for Creative-Relational Inquiry, University of Edinburgh, 2020)
  • Autoethnography as Activism (Opening plenary). British Autoethnography Conference, University of Bristol (2019)

 

Media Activity

  • Culture, interculturality, and the outdoors. "All Bodies Outside" (2023 podcast series. Host: Kansas State University. Interviewed by Dr Brian Peterson.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4czpN4ggodo
  • Winner of The Moth (Sydney) Story Slam (true stories, told live, no notes; 2018): https://youtu.be/0EY6xZBai50?si=ISp3KXNci4uUtN5T

 

Public/Community Engagement

  • Cabaret of Dangerous Ideas: Badass Spinsters (Edinburgh Festival Fringe show, August 2023, about my research). https://youtu.be/uZ67ZYd4lsI?si=GHgvy9-2LUvP0cwo
  • Bright Club (2019): a stand-up comedy set about my intercultural research: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlBiIwGjJPo
  • Bright Club (2019): Standup comedy set about my gender research https://youtu.be/EaOr6Q0uDPg

 

Current Post Grad projects

Non-Napier PhD or MSc by Research supervisions

  • Elham Zakeri (2019). PhD. "The role of agency in emerging academic identities of international doctoral students at an Australian university". (Main supervisor). UNSW Sydney, Australia.
  • Alice Cranney (2017). PhD. "Australian exchange students’ transnational identity negotiations and Spanish language learning: Becoming ‘casi mexicana’?" (Main supervisor.) UNSW Sydney, Australia.
  • Jasper Kun Ting Hsieh (2016). PhD. "An auto/ethnography of overseas students’ identity movements". (Main supervisor.) UNSW Sydney, Australia.
  • Nanis Setyorini (2016). PhD. "Imaginaries, Desires, and Koneksi (Connections): English Language Proficiency for Indonesian Accountants". (Main supervisor.) UNSW Sydney, Australia.
  • Huong Nguyen (2017). PhD. "Novice English language teachers in Vietnamese secondary schools: resources and identity development". (Main supervisor.) UNSW Sydney, Australia.
  • Hannah Soong (2012). PhD. 'Fitting-in', 'looking-out', 'being-in-flux' : the lived experiences of transnational pre-service teachers. (Adjunct supervisor). University of South Australia.