Dr. Katie Young, PhD

Katie Young is Assistant Professor of Cultural Geography in the School of Irish Studies. She received a PhD in Geography and Music from Royal Holloway, University of London in 2019.

Following her PhD, Katie undertook postdoctoral research at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland. There, she examined experiences of music and migration in Cork and Galway's night spaces.

Katie is the Canadian Co-Principal Investigator for Beyond Opposition, a European Research Council funded research project based in the Geography Department at University College Dublin, Ireland. The project explores geographies of gender and opposition in everyday life in Ireland, Canada and the UK. This research draws on extended interviews as well as a series of discussion-based and creative workshops, including creative arts-based research methods.

Drawing on her interests in the intersections of research and the creative arts, Katie has experience designing interactive arts-based public research activities, including the online website Music, Memory and the Night, as well as the gallery exhibition From Canvas to Cassette.

Courses Taught:

The Making of the Irish Landscape / IRST 398 A / GEOG 342 A
Inhabiting the Irish Landscape: Irish Cultural Geography / IRST 398 AA / GEOG 398 AA
Cultural Geographies of the Irish Night / IRST 398 BB / GEOG 398 BB

Katie's research examines everyday and every 'night' experiences of space, including work on gender and public space as well as research on the intersections of creative arts and night spaces in Ireland. 

Katie has published in a range of international journals and books, including in Ethnomusicology and the Journal of African Cultural Studies, and is co-editor of the open-access volume Sonic Signatures: Music, Migration and the City at Night. Katie is also the editorial assistant for Ethnomusicology Forum journal. 

“Music, Memory & the Night: Experiencing Migratory Musical Moments through Art” Sonic Signatures: Music, Migration and the City at Night (Chapter, Intellect Press). (2023). 

“‘The House of the Irish’: African Migrant Musicians and the Creation of Diasporic Space.” Ethnomusicology Forum. (2023)  

“Producing Locality at Night: From Lagos Hometown Meetings to Galway’s G Afro Vibez.” Crossings: Journal of Migration and Culture (13.1):  11-26. (2022)

“Hindi Film Songs in the Home: Gendered Experiences Singing Popular Songs in Tamale, Ghana.” Ethnomusicology (66.2): 264-289. (2022)

“Walking Through Postcolonial Archives in Tamale, Northern Ghana.” Archival Science (21): 373-389. (2021)

“Hindi Films, Bollywood, and Indian Television Serials: A History of Connection, Disconnection, and Reconnection in Ghana.” Journal of African Cultural Studies (33.4): 505-520. (2021)

“‘If You know Arabic, Indian Songs Are Easy For You’: Performing Hindi Film Songs in Northern Ghana.” In The Oxford Handbook of Cinematic Listening, edited by Carlo Cenciarelli, 508-528. Oxford: Oxford University Press. (2021)

“‘She’s Like Our Own Lata Mangeshkar’: The Playback Singers of Tamale, Ghana.” Ethnomusicology Review (Sounding Board). (2019)

 “Reel Pleasures: Cinema Audiences and Entrepreneurs in Twentieth-Century Urban Tanzania (Review).” Journal of Religion and Film (23.2): 1-9. (2019)

“Hearing Sacred Sounds in Hindi Film Songs: Thoughts on the mawlid in Tamale, Northern Ghana.” Journal of Africana Religions (5): 299-306. (2017)

“Music and Migration in Irish Pub Spaces: A View From Cork and Galway” Chapter in The Irish Pub: Invention and Re-invention (Cork University Press) (accepted, in press)

“Movement and Music across Night Spaces in Irish cities” – Invited Chapter in Cities After        

Dusk (edited collection, Amsterdam University Press) (accepted, in press)