Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities
United Kingdom
fellow
Helen E. Shutt
2025-2026
Home institution
University of Glasgow
Country of origin (home institution)
United Kingdom
Discipline(s)
Arts and arts studies; Health Sciences; Interdisciplinary Studies
Theme(s)
Gender, Family & Youth; Health; Inequalities, inclusion & Social Innovation; Performing arts; Post-colonialism; Regional Studies
Fellowship dates
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Biography
Dr Helen Shutt is an interdisciplinary theatre practitioner and researcher who was awarded her PhD in Theatre Studies from the University of Glasgow in 2023. She is particularly interested in using participatory arts methods to support modes of expressing and understanding gender-related issues. Her doctoral thesis employed a practice-based methodology to develop care-centred approaches to crafting participatory performance. In 2023 she undertook a Research Fellowship with Stellar Quines Theatre Company, using care as a lens through which to assess initiatives to make the theatre industry safer, more accessible and inclusive.
Alongside her work in the UK Theatre stage and screen sectors, Helen has worked internationally exploring sex and gender-based issues, collaborating with organisations in India (Think Arts), Malawi (Theatre for a Change), Mozambique and Sierra Leone (Timap for Justice). From 2024-25 she worked as the Postdoctoral Research Associate on a British Academy funded project undertaking a multidimensional investigation into female circumcision in Sierra Leone. She led on the design and delivery of creative approaches to explore experiences of Sierra Leonean womanhood.
Helen has shared her research at conferences in the UK and Internationally. Her short monograph Playwriting and the Craft of Audience Participation is due for publication by Cambridge University Press in 2026.
Research Project
Interweaving Ethics and Aesthetics: Crafting a Care-Centred Model of Gender Research in Sierra Leone
This study will interweave care ethics with artistic practice to propose a relation-centred, adaptive approach to gender research, using Sierra Leone as a case study. I will draw upon the data I gathered when conducting research into the practice of female circumcision in Sierra Leone. Based on these learnings, I will explore how arts practice can have a key role in shaping a care-centred research model, in which ethics and method are integrated. I will use examples from the research I undertook to illustrate how principles from creative practice can be guided by the values of care ethics towards the design, execution and dissemination of an environmentally contingent, care-based gender research programme. Focusing on three inter-connected aspects, i) relationality ii) environment and iii) embodiment, this approach will demonstrate how ethics and aesthetics can be imbricated from the conception to the completion of the project in a holistic model of work which can be adapted for different research contexts.
Research Interests:
theatre studies; gender; care