Dr Imogen Bevan is a social anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh. Imogen was awarded her PhD in 2022 for the thesis "Bittersweet: Living with sugar and kin in contemporary Scotland", University of Edinburgh. Her doctoral research explored sugar consumption and family-making in an Edinburgh neighbourhood, showing that sugar is central to processes of social relatedness, but poses ethical problems for people bringing up children. She currently works as an ESRC Postdoctoral Fellow in Human Geography, School of Geosciences. Prior to this, she carried out postdoctoral research on COVID-19 testing in Scotland for the ERC-funded project 'Investigating the Design and Use of Diagnostic Devices in Global Health’ (DiaDev, PI Dr Alice Street), and postgraduate research on smoking and electronic cigarette use among young people in France (‘Chemical Youth’, PI Prof Anita Hardon, University of Amsterdam and former IASH Fellow). Current projects: Imogen is currently writing a book on sugar consumption based on material from her PhD thesis.
My research interests include kinship; children and childhood; health; food and diet; tobacco and e-cigarette use; diagnostics; mental health; ethnography; creative methods.
Publications
Bevan, I. (2024). Sugar, a morally ambiguous substance: Responsibility, social class and pleasure in Scotland’s state primary schools. Medicine Anthropology Theory, 11 (3). https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.11.3.7222
Street, A., Lee, S. J., Bevan, I. (2022). The Hidden Burden of Medical Testing: Public Views and Experiences of COVID-19 Testing as a Social and Ethical Process. BMC Public Health, 22 (1837).
Bevan, I., Stage Baxter, M., Stagg, H. R., Street, A. (2021) Knowledge, Attitudes, and Behavior Related to COVID-19 Testing: A Rapid Scoping Review. Diagnostics, 11(9), 1685.
Bevan, I. (2016). E-cigarettes: Smoking pleasure reinvented? The many faces of harm reduction in France. Contemporary Drug Problems, 43 (3), 228-241.
Academic blog posts
Bevan, I. 2024. What does Edinburgh smell like? Smell Studies.
Bevan, I. (2020). Rethinking the house as a public health technology of preparedness in the UK’s COVID-19 pandemics. Somatosphere.
Bevan, I., Street, A. & Kelly, A. (2018). Reebov: Developing an Ebola Rapid Test at Ground Zero. Somatosphere.
Bevan, I. (2015). What is a 'throat hit'? Reframing smoking as a sensory practice. Medicine Anthropology Theory.