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Current Postgraduate Research Students

Leighanne Higgins supervises 4 postgraduate research students. If these students have produced research profiles, these are listed below:

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Dr Leighanne Higgins

Senior Lecturer

Leighanne Higgins

Charles Carter Building

LA1 4YX

Lancaster

Tel: +44 1524 510096

PhD supervision

I am willing to discuss possible supervision with candidates interested in consumer vulnerability and specifically in marketplace access and disability issues. I am also interested in students who wish to research sacred consumption, investigating the relationship between religion and marketplace structures and religious and secular pilgrimage.

Profile

I am interested in the area of consumer behaviour, and teach many of the CB courses here at LUMS marketing department. My conusmer research interests lie within two core areas: Markeptlace Accessibility and Sacred Consumption.

Marketplace Accessibility:  I am interested in understanding and challenging the barriers to marketplace and commercial settings for those living with disability. I began work in this area in 2016 and have built extensive insight and expertise into the access inequalities facing the disabled community in retail, healthcare, transportation, and tourism & hospitality. Since 2019, I have been working on the collaborative and art-based project: The Marketplace and I: Commercial Experiences of Disability Explored through Art (M&I). This project invited members of the disabled community to create artworks that represent their commercial experiences. To date the M&I has been publicly exhibited five times and engaged with over 1200+ stakeholders including companies, policymakers, politicians, charities, and the public. These public exhibitions have uncovered visitors to experience reflective and empathetic emotions towards the artworks, causing them to reflect deeply on their preconceptions towards disability. As such, since Autumn 2022, we have been using the project to engage with Lancashire based companies, using the artworks and wider M&I project we have developed a novel and innovative accessibility training workshop that permits companies to engage with accessibility scoring, accessibility planning and accessibility strategy building.

Sacred Consumption:  I am interested in the complex relationship between religious and marketplace structures. My current research projects investigate religious consumptive behaviours within the context of pilgrimage with a particular focus on emotive and affectiveconsumption experiences. 

Current Teaching

MKTG101: Introduction to Marketing (Consumer Behaviour)

MKTG225: Consumer Behaviour

Career Details

PhD in Marketing (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow)

MRes in Business (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow)

BA (Hons) International Business and Modern Languages (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow)

 

Research Grants

2023: NWSSDTP CASE competition funding to fund a PhD student for three years alongside Professor James Cronin and NHS Lancashire to complete the study entitled: Resisting bureau-medicalisation: The integration of 'Spaces of Compassion' with the Biomedical Healthcare Environment.

2023: LUMS Catalyst Impact Funding of £6,500 with Dr Killian O'Leary: The Marketplace and I: Accessible Training Programme (Phase 2).

2022: Academy of Marketing Research funding of £4965.50: The Marketplace and I: A Videography.

2022: Kings College Impact funding of £75,000 with Dr Katharina Husemann and Dr Anica Zeyen: Improving Access and Inclusion of Visually Impaired People in UK-Based Museums.

2022: The Marketing Trust funding of £5,846: The Marketplace and I: Understanding how art can positively change consumer perceptions towards disability.

2019: The Marketing Trust funding of £6,782.21: The Marketplace and I: Commercial Experiences of Disability Explored through Art.

2016: LUMS Pump Prime funding of £5,000: An exploratory investigation into disability access barriers to tourism.

2009-2013: ESRC (1+3) Studentship (MRes and PhD)

 

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