Zack Ditch

I am a Doctoral Researcher and Lecturer (Media and Communication Studies - across three academic years) at Nottingham Trent University. My current research practice is largely centred around gender and queer-based studies, whilst my academic background has been focused around theatre and performance studies. My doctoral project, titled: 'Locating Regional Cultures of Drag in Medium-Sized English Cities: An Ethnographic Case Study of Nottingham’s Drag Scene', sits between fields of: gender-based, cultural, queer, performance-based, and ethnographic research. It ethnographically explores the socioeconomic dimensions of regional and lesser-metropolitan drag scenes in the UK (physically and virtually), with specific focus on the infiltration of neoliberal ideologies. Observations are made around: socioeconomic dimensions of drag scenes and their geographic positioning, historical shifts relating to queer visibility within queer communities, and the experiential qualities observed by those constructing UK drag scenes.

I have experience in publishing within UK-based journals, and I currently have a chapter in the final stages of peer review for a drag-performance based edited collection to be published by the University of Delaware (USA).