Dr Inès Hassen-Dakhli

I completed both my MA (2012) and PhD (2017) at the Centre for Urban History in the University of Leicester. Following the completion of my PhD, I worked as a Teaching Fellow in French and Francophone Studies at the University of Leicester’s School of Arts from 2017 to 2021. I am now based in France teaching courses on contemporary British history. I have taught a wide range of modules in the fields of Modern Languages, French studies, History and British studies in both the UK and France. I have been a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy since 2018.

In my doctoral studies, I specialised in the concept of globalisation, which I used as an analytical framework to examine social, cultural and economic developments in medium-sized French and British cities from the 1980s onwards. More specifically, I focused on the cities of Leicester (Britain) and Reims (France) and analysed the construction of their urban identity in the post-industrial period and their responses to global forces. I have developed a combination of historical and sociological perspectives to understand the processes that generated divergent responses from the local authorities to the economic, political and cultural challenges presented by global forces. I also focussed on the concept of ‘city branding’ as an aspect of urban policy and, more particularly, explored the link between place marketing and multiculturalism in the Leicester model. I am currently completing my monograph on the development of medium-sized cities in the context of globalisation, through a Franco-British comparison, which will be published by Routledge Advances in Urban History.

Hassen, I., Medium-sized cities in the age of globalisation. Routledge Advances in Urban History (forthcoming monograph).

Hassen, I. and Giovanardi, M., ‘Deflecting national ideologies: exploring identity management trajectories of medium-sized cities', Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, (2021).

Hassen, I. and Giovanardi, M., ‘The difference of being diverse: city branding and multiculturalism in the Leicester Model’, Cities: The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, 80, (2018), pp. 45-52. 

Bakawan, A., Ahmed, A., Bach, J.N., Blanc, P., Guignard, X., Hassen, I., Hussein, O., Ashraf, N., Mahmood, S., Racine, J.L., Sriskanda, R., ‘Independentism and the end of violence’, International Panel on Exiting Violence Final Report (2019).

Hassen, I., ‘British and French urban policies: two different approaches, 1980-2008’, A. Chen and S. Alifragkis (eds), Architectural and Urban History and Historiography (Athens, 2015), pp. 113-122.