Dr
Bojana
Daw Srdanović
(she/her)
School of Education
Research Associate
Full contact details
School of Education
The Wave
- Profile
-
My research uses arts and humanities approaches to investigate health and care, with a particular focus on learning disability and care as an embodied and sensory practice. Grounded in critical disability studies and informed by the performing arts, my work explores how concepts such as aesthetics, technique and presence can contribute to theories of care and to empirical approaches to researching it.
I am a Wellcome Early Career Fellow at iHuman at the University of Sheffield. My current project, The Learning Disability Art of Care, develops, in collaboration with learning-disabled actors, a methodology for investigating care as an embodied practice. The project centres the expertise of actors as theatre makers, artists and educators, drawing on performing arts concepts and drama practices to develop novel approaches to researching and teaching care.
Before joining the University of Sheffield, I worked in academic and NHS research, alongside earlier experience in social care and community arts.
- Research interests
-
My research interests have developed through more than 20 years of working alongside people with learning disabilities across social care, community arts, and academic and NHS research. This experience informs my interest in learning disability and care, and my commitment to research that centres the knowledge and expertise of people with learning disabilities.
My research is situated within medical humanities and grounded in critical disability studies. I use arts and humanities approaches to develop new ways of thinking about and researching health and care, drawing particularly on performing arts theory and practice.
I am interested in care as an embodied and sensory practice, and in how concepts developed within the performing arts can contribute to theories of care. In particular, I draw on concepts such as aesthetics, embodiment, presence, technique and improvisation to think through what care is and how it happens. I am also interested in how actor training techniques that cultivate sensory awareness, presence and responsiveness, can be mobilised to explore, research and teach care.
A particular focus of my work is developing research with learning-disabled people that centres their expertise and challenges conventional distinctions between academic and experiential knowledge. I am interested in how co-production can generate theory, and in how arts and humanities scholarship can contribute to the development of empirical social science methodologies.
My current Wellcome-funded project, The Learning Disability Art of Care, brings these interests together to develop, in collaboration with learning-disabled actors, a methodology for investigating care as an embodied practice, with particular attention to its aesthetic dimensions.
More broadly, my research interests include learning disability and care; critical disability studies; medical humanities; performing arts and health research; embodiment and aesthetics; drama and experiential learning; co-production; and qualitative research methodologies.
- Grants
-
Wellcome Trust Early Career Award (2026-2031, Principal Investigator, £478,287.00) 'The Learning Disability Art of Care: centring actors with learning disabilities to develop novel understandings of care'
Wellcome Trust PhD Studentship (2019-2023, £80,509) "Acting on the Edge - a transdisciplinary study into the experiences of learning-disabled actors constructing a professional identity in the contemporary UK'
- Teaching interests
-
My teaching experience spans drama, medical humanities and medical education. I have taught drama theory and practice at undergraduate level and have drawn on this experience to design interdisciplinary medical humanities teaching for medical students.
My medical humanities teaching has focused particularly on learning disability, care and stigma, using humanities and arts-based approaches to encourage students to critically examine how assumptions about disability shape clinical knowledge, professional practice and relationships of care. I am interested in developing medical education that enables future clinicians to recognise and challenge the stigmatisation of learning-disabled people.
- Professional activities and memberships
-
Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy