Myfanwy Davies is interested in the interaction of language, gender and power in the accounts of women and minorities as users of welfare services and in illness and disability narratives. She read English Language and Literature at Oriel College, Oxford and went on to read Social Anthropology at Girton College, Cambridge. She pursued an interest in information exchange by studying for a further MSc in Information Management, in the course of which she produced her first papers on Somali women’s accounts of using maternity services in Sheffield. Her PhD (London) focuses on the accounts of Arab Muslim women as users of maternity services in London in the period immediately following 9/11.

Myfanwy returned to Wales in 2005 as a researcher in health policy and joined Bangor in 2011 as a lecturer with the Coleg Cenedlaethol. Having successfully introduced a range of teaching and learning improvements and QA processes as Moderator for Bangor’s provision in Tashkent and served as Deputy dean (Teaching and learning) for the College of Business, Law, Education and Social Sciences, she was appointed Head of Quality Assurance and Validation at Bangor in late 2018. She is currently involved in introducing a risk-based approach to programme approval. She remains research active. Her current, personal research focuses on mothers’ experiences of being the subject of social policy interventions.

School of History, Philosophy and Social Sciences/QAV Unit.

01248 382140

@DrMyfanwyDavies

My teaching traces processes and practices of policy formation within a devolved UK with a particular emphasis of health in Wales. It also draws on multi-disciplinary perspectives to understand the experience of addiction (to substances or behaviours) for individuals and to enable students to critically engage with what it means to recover from addiction.

Llywodraethiant: Iechyd a Lles

My innovative module on Governance in Health and Welfare was introduced in 2016. It examines policy and practice by focusing on key concepts such as responsibility, civil society, the “hollowing out of the state”, partnership, public participation, the valorization of ‘active citizenship’ and the use of targets and incentives to drive practitioner behaviour.

The Addicted Body/Y Corff Caeth – co-authored with Dr. Paul Carre

Using contemporary theories of the Body including phenomenology and governmentality, this module examines a range of addictions. It considers both the experience of embodiment and the symbolic role of the body in society as a means to discuss the emergence and experience of conditions as diverse as drug and alcohol addiction, anorexia, web addiction and sex addiction. It also introduces the biomedical and biopsychosocial understandings of addiction and recovery and uses Boudieusian theory and ethnographic methods to understand to cultural and social context of addictive behaviour and the living conditions that are, in part, created by the drug business and the policy interventions it attracts it within specific localities.

Dissertation (3^rd year)Module Coordinator

All undergraduates within the School of Social Science currently prepare a dissertation during years 2 and 3. While all students are matched with a supervisor who will meet with them regularly to offer advice and feedback, the choice of subject is open and students are expected to develop their work largely independently. As module coordinator for the Welsh medium dissertation module I prepare a series of workshops that seek to teach students to carry out independent research. These include teaching on forming and developing a research question, collecting and analysing data together with advice on preparing the final draft.

PhD Supervisions

My current supervisions include an ethnographic study of disability and work within a family network (Williams), a biographical study of carers’ identity and concepts of person-centredness, the experiences of Welsh-speaking stroke patients in terms of treatment and support (ap Gruffydd) and the cultural context of popular music choices in two generations in Gwynedd (ap Rhisiart).  

I have a long-term interest in the cultural and social context of decision making in Health and Social care that dates back to my Masters’ dissertation on Somali women and maternity services (see publication list). More recently I have used a Bourdieusian framework to understand choices such as vaccination and sexual health decision making (see also supervisions).  I am currently interested in the experience of ‘living policy’ among those who are subject to such as welfare recipients, young mothers and mothers as healthcare and childcare decision makers (see current research projects). I also contribute to collaborative work that assesses how Governments position themselves in relation to concepts such individual and collective responsibility, equality, rights and ‘value for money’ through the discourse analysis of key policy documents.