Xsara Helmi
School of Arts, Media and Creative Technologies
Biography
www.xsara.co.uk/academic
My academic background spans music, broadcasting, sociology, documentary film, education and psychotherapeutic counselling. My PhD sits at the intersection of aural diversity, autistic auditory sensitivities, music phenomenology (embodiment), poetic inquiry and film. My research challenges traditional hierarchical models of knowledge by positioning sensory experience as legitimate sites of inquiry. Rather than treating sound as a fixed object of measured analysis, I approach it as a relational phenomenon emerging through interactions between perception, embodiment, memory and environment. Through transdisciplinary arts-based research, I explore auditory experiences that can exceed the limits of conventional academic language.
A key part of my work is the development of subversive research practices that question established assumptions about whose knowledge is valued, how knowledge is produced, and what academic research 'should' look like. My research is informed by feminist and critical praxis and by my positionality as a mixed-race, neurodivergent and care-experienced researcher.
--External PhD Advisors --
Em. Prof. John L. Drever Director, LAURA, Cambridge Digital Humanities, University of Cambridge
Assoc. Prof. Jon Robson, Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham
Dr. Helen Kara, Independent Researcher and Author
Dr. Roula-Marie Dib, Founding Director of London Arts-Based Research Centre,
--Widening Participation--
I am passionate about supporting students whose backgrounds and routes into education are underrepresented in postgraduate research and academia. I am happy to speak with care-experienced and care-leaver students considering postgraduate or PhD study.
I am interested in supporting students who have experienced:
* Care and the care system
* Homelessness during childhood or adolescence
* Primary caring responsibilities as a child
* Poverty and financial barriers to education
* Parental or family imprisonment
* Substance misuse within the family
* Other significant barriers to education
* Alternative routes into higher education, including Access courses
My own route into higher education has shaped this commitment. I was awarded a scholarship to attend boarding school as a young flautist, alongside sibling caring responsibilities. During my youth, I was subsequently placed into full local authority care after being forced to leave boarding school, and lived in several children’s homes and foster placements.
I am also passionate about seeing greater representation of Black, mixed-race and other people of colour within postgraduate research and academia, particularly from working-class and care-experienced backgrounds.
Areas of Research
Research interests:
• Aural diversity and autistic auditory experience
• Transdisciplinary arts-based practice research and creative research methodologies
• Music phenomenology, improvisation, embodiment, and sensory experience
• Sonic autobiography, hospital soundscapes, and hospital machine sounds
• Poetic inquiry, sensory ethnography, autoethnography, and a/r/tography
• Numinous and transcendent dimensions of autistic sonic experience
• Sonic agency, affect, relationality, and listening
• Feminist and decolonial research praxis
• Multimodal artistic practice across music, film, and poetic inquiry
• Filmmaking and screen documentary
• Radio, broadcasting, and sonic media
I am a qualified teacher with a Level 7 PGCE (FE, QTLS), with over six years’ experience across secondary, alternative, further and post-compulsory education. I have taught GCSE, A level and Level 3 across music, media, social sciences, humanities and the creative arts. My teaching philosophy is informed by constructivist and humanistic approaches, with a focus on student-centred learning, critical thinking and inclusive practice.
I have held Course Lead, Programme Manager and Lecturer roles across Level 3 programmes, including Access to Psychology, Access to Social Sciences, Access to Teaching, the RSL Vocal Diploma and UAL Diplomas in Creative and Performing Arts. My experience includes curriculum development, programme leadership, assessment and academic support.
In addition to mainstream and further education, I have taught young people in residential care settings and worked with vulnerable adults experiencing substance misuse and homelessness. My teaching practice places particular emphasis on inclusive and responsive pedagogy, with extensive experience supporting neurodivergent learners and students with Specific Learning Difficulties (SpLD). I adapt teaching, learning materials, assessment approaches, and classroom practice to support equitable participation and attainment. I am particularly committed to working with learners and communities who have experienced barriers to education and are often underrepresented within educational settings.
Qualifications
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PGCE FE
2022 - 2024 -
MA Filmmaking (Screen Documentary)
2018 - 2020 -
Psychotherapeutic Counselling (Arts)
2015 - 2017 -
Millinery
2013 - 2013 -
BA Sociology
2009 - 2012
Recognitions
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Editors’ Choice, Journal of Creative Research Methods, Bristol University Press, Bristol University Press/Policy Press — 'Hospital Noises' Journal Article
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Visiting PhD Researcher, Faculty of Music, University of Cambridge
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Visiting PhD Researcher, Cambridge Digital Humanities, University of Cambridge