Rebecca Searle

Rebecca Searle is a contemporary historian whose work explores the ways in which the study of the past can be used to make critical interventions in the politics of the present. Her research focuses on housing, property and urban change in twentieth and twenty-first century Britain, examining the historical roots of the contemporary housing crisis and the relationship between property development, global finance and the ways housing markets reshape cities.

Her research is developed through collaborations with a range of community organisations, policymakers and local stakeholders. She is particularly interested in forms of co-produced research that bring together academic scholarship and local knowledge to better understand the forces shaping housing and urban development. She founded the University of Brighton Housing Forum, a network bringing together academics, policymakers and community organisations working on housing and urban development in Brighton and Hove.

Rebecca leads Who Owns Brighton, a community research project investigating property ownership and development in the city. Developed in partnership with the Brighton & Hove Community Land Trust and funded by the Civic Power Fund, the project brings together researchers and residents to explore what is being built in Brighton, who benefits from urban development, and how communities can better understand and intervene in the planning process.

Her wider research interests include the history of twentieth and twenty-first century Britain, particularly the history of gender and sexuality, war and conflict, and politics and political movements.

Dr Rebecca Searle is Principal Lecturer in History at the University of Brighton and Course Leader for the BA Contemporary History programme.

Rebecca studied Contemporary History at the University of Sussex, where she completed her BA and MA before being awarded an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award. Her doctoral research was undertaken in partnership with the Imperial War Museum and examined art, propaganda and the experience of aerial warfare in Britain during the Second World War.

Following her doctorate she held a Paul Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at Yale University, where she developed this research into the monograph Art, Propaganda and Aerial Warfare in Britain during the Second World War (Bloomsbury, 2020).

She later worked as a postdoctoral researcher in economic history at the University of Sussex, contributing to the ESRC-funded project The Living Standards of Working Households in Britain, 1904–1960 and the ESRC-funded Global Income Inequality Project.

At the University of Brighton her research has increasingly focused on the historical roots of the contemporary housing crisis and the changing role of housing in modern Britain. Her book History of the Housing Crisis (Rowman & Littlefield, 2022) examines the economic and political transformations that reshaped housing in Britain and contributed to the present crisis.

Professor Danny Dorling, University of Oxford, described the book as:

“Enlightening, inspiring and revealing in equal measure. From the plotting of Conservatives to the failures of New Labour and the rearising of radicalism in Scotland, Rebecca Searle’s brilliant account of the housing history of Britain not only details where we have come from, but also where we need to move to next.”

Claire Langhamer, Director of the Institute of Historical Research, wrote:

“This engaging and important new book shows exactly why understanding the past matters. In Searle's hands the history of housing sheds new light on the development of modern Britain. History of the Housing Crisis both explains the current housing crisis and suggests how it might be resolved. Everyone should read it.”

Alongside her academic work, Rebecca collaborates with community organisations, policymakers and local stakeholders to explore how research can inform policy and help develop local responses to the housing crisis in Brighton and Hove. She founded the University of Brighton Housing Forum, a network bringing together academics, policymakers and community organisations working on housing in the city.

She leads Who Owns Brighton, a community research project developed in partnership with the Brighton & Hove Community Land Trust and funded by the Civic Power Fund. The project investigates property ownership and development in the city and brings together researchers and residents to explore what is being built in Brighton, who benefits from urban development, and how communities can better understand and intervene in the planning process.

Rebecca has also contributed to the Common Ambition project, a collaboration between researchers, people with lived experience of homelessness, frontline providers and commissioners that works through co-production to improve health services and support systems for people experiencing homelessness in Brighton and Hove.

Her work informs a research-led approach to teaching that encourages students to investigate real-world social and political questions through historical inquiry.

Rebecca’s teaching is influenced by the traditions of the History Workshop movement, which emphasise collaborative learning and recognise students as capable and original researchers. She encourages students to pursue their own historical questions and develop the confidence and independence needed to undertake original research.

From her own experience as a researcher, she has learnt that the most powerful ideas emerge when we take our work beyond the classroom and engage with communities and the wider world. This approach shapes the BA Contemporary History programme, where students investigate contemporary social and political questions through historical inquiry while developing practical skills in communication and public engagement.

Students work with a range of formats including podcasts, film, data visualisation and digital media, and many projects involve engagement with archives, local histories and organisations beyond the university. These experiences enable students to apply historical knowledge to real-world debates while developing the skills needed for a wide range of careers.

A central aspect of Rebecca’s teaching is a commitment to neuroinclusive learning. Her modules use interactive, workshop-based teaching rather than relying primarily on traditional lectures and seminars. Through hands-on activities, collaborative projects and practical research tasks, students are supported to engage with historical inquiry in different ways, enabling a wide range of learners to participate and thrive.

Rebecca received a One Brighton Award for research-linked teaching in recognition of this work.

Rebecca supervises doctoral students working on modern and contemporary British history. She has particular expertise in the history of housing, the politics of twentieth and twenty-first century Britain, the history of gender and sexuality, and the impact of war on society.

She works with students across social, political, cultural and economic history, and also supervises students in related disciplines such as politics, sociology and philosophy who wish to incorporate historical analysis into their research.

Knowledge exchange and community engagement are central to Rebecca’s work. Her doctoral research was supported by an AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Award undertaken in partnership with the Imperial War Museum. During her ESRC postdoctoral research she also worked with The National Archives to develop a Teacher Scholar Programme, collaborating with secondary school teachers to create teaching resources that enabled pupils to engage with the historical datasets produced by the project.

Community collaboration is now central to her research on the housing crisis. She founded and co-ordinates the University of Brighton Housing Forum, which brings together academics, community organisations and policymakers to explore local responses to the housing crisis.

Rebecca works in partnership with the Brighton & Hove Community Land Trust. Supported by an Ignite funding award, this collaboration has developed research on property ownership and development in the city. The partnership subsequently secured funding from the Civic Power Fund for the Who Owns Brighton project, which enables communities to interrogate recent developments in their neighbourhoods and better understand the forces shaping housing and planning in the city. The project aims to build financial and democratic literacy around development and planning while developing a bottom-up empirical picture of property development in twenty-first century Britain.

Rebecca has also contributed to the Brighton & Hove Common Ambition project, which brings together people with lived experience of homelessness, frontline providers and commissioners through co-production within homeless health services to improve support and outcomes for people experiencing homelessness.

She also works to disseminate her research in forms that are accessible beyond academia. She has given public talks across Brighton and Sussex on the housing crisis, contributed to exhibitions, and appeared on podcasts discussing the history of housing and contemporary housing debates.