Applications open for doctoral research on the Society’s Collections

Applications are open for two PhD studentships on the Society’s Collections, as part of our Collaborative Doctoral Awards programme. The projects will start in autumn 2024 and will focus on in-depth research into the Society’s Collections. The deadline for applications for both projects is 15 January.

The first of the two projects, The geographical museum: making knowledge through objects, will support PhD research at Royal Holloway, University of London on the Society’s Collections, including their past role and potential uses in the context of object-centred humanities research and engagement in museum settings. The project is funded by the Techne AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership. The successful applicant will have the opportunity to adapt the project according to their own interests and to work across academic, heritage, and archival contexts.

The second of the projects, titled Ethnographies of border mapping: retracing the field through the geographical archive, is funded by the Northern Bridge AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership. The project will draw on border expertise at Durham’s Centre for Borders Research and expertise in the history of cartography at Queen’s University Belfast to analyse archival data from the 19th to early 20th centuries, when the Society was a leader in boundary delimitation.

Through developing a methodology of ‘cartographic ethnography’, the project will produce insights into relations between cartographic and other knowledge systems, the production of boundary maps through processes that articulate across a range of media, and how the intersection of maps, knowledge, and media are mobilised to construct ideals of state territory amidst the practicalities of political bordering. 

We encourage the widest range of applicants for these studentships and are committed to welcoming those from different backgrounds and non-standard pathways.

To find out more about the studentships and to apply, visit the webpage.