Kath Bassett

Kath Bassett is Lecturer in Sociology at the University of York. Their research sits at the intersection of digital culture, urban studies, and cultural economy, examining how digital infrastructures shape mobilities, urban economies, and touristic development. Drawing on ethnographic research, they analyse how platforms and algorithmic systems become embedded in hospitality work, cultural scenes and markets, and the coordination of international tourism – particularly in moments of crisis. A distinctive strand of this work develops a historical and genealogical approach to platform power, tracing the digital and non-digital antecedents of contemporary touristic platforms and foregrounding the gendered infrastructural labour that sustains them. Kath is currently extending this research to examine how generative AI reshapes urban imaginaries and reconfigures cultural and economic life.