Kim-Marie Spence

Kim-Marie's research focus is Non-West cultural industries and cultural policy with a focus on reggae/dancehall and K-pop. Her focus is regarding the political economy of cultural industries, with a focus on nationlity, location and race. Likewise, she has an interest in creative city policies, given the urban focus and locus of creative industries. Her work links work in cultural and arts management, cultural policy, music industry, cultural labour, and decoloniality.

Kim-Marie has significant experience in the international arts and cultural sector and cultural policy. She was previously Film Commissioner/Head of Creative Industries of Jamaica. Additionally, she has consulted and worked in Australia, Jamaica, the UK, and  India ( in addition to her own personal experience of living in 11 countries) - which serves to inform her world perspective on the cultural indsutries and the importance of positionality, location and the North-South spectrum in this scholarship. She is also currently Advisory Board member of the Journal of Cultural Economy

Cultural Policy with a specialisation in the Non-West and Global South 

Creative city policy and city of cultural designations, including music cities

Cultural/creative industries, particularly music - reggae/dancehall and K-pop

Decolonisation within arts/cultural management studies, pedagogy and research

Kim-Marie has been a QUB lecturer since 2021; and is currently the Subject Lead for Arts Management and Cultural Policy.  She has led and collaborated regarding updates and changes within the MA, particularly  the decolonisation of the cultural policy module which she convenes. Likewise, she has introduced the use of live case studies from the Global South and role play, as part of pedagogical innovation. Additionally, given her status as an adjunct at the University of the West Indies, Mona (Jamaica), she has also written on North-South practices of curriculum decolonisation and pedagogy within the cultural policy and arts management space. This is inspired by her own research on the global political economy of the cultural and creative industries and the attendant embedded inequities within.