Dr Anita Strasser

Biography

Dr Anita Strasser is a visual sociologist, photographer and writer who has worked with multiple communities on a variety of creative research projects. Anita is interested in creative and participative research methods, research for social justice, oral histories, communities, belonging and urban change. She is also interested in walking as an art, research and pedagogical practice. For her PhD (funded through a full CHASE AHRC doctorship), Anita worked with Deptford housing campaigners, community artists, residents and green space activists on a 2-year community arts project called Deptford is Changing to make visible and audible their experiences of gentrification-induced displacement. The repeated public enactment of these counternarratives on a blog, various social media sites and alternative media, as well as through the publication and launch of a book contributed to changes in planning proposals and other victories for residents. Anita's thesis Participating in Radical Visual Sociology: Supporting housing activism through gentrification and displacement research (2024) examines the processes involved when academic research is instrumentalised for political struggle, and the ethical, methodological and aesthetic decisions this involves.

In 2025, Anita received a SENSS ESRC Post-doctoral Fellowship at the Department of Media, Communications and Cultural Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London. This is to consolidate her PhD and write a series of articles from her thesis.