Durham University’s Department of Geography, together with IBRU (Durham’s Centre for Borders Research), Queen’s University Belfast’s Department of Geography, and the Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), is pleased to announce that it is recruiting one prospective PhD student for a fully-funded, 3.5-year PhD studentship in ‘Ethnographies of Border Mapping’, funded by the UK Arts & Humanities Research Council’s Northern Bridge Doctoral Training Partnership’s Collaborative Doctoral Award programme. Through developing a methodology of ‘cartographic ethnography’, the researcher will produce
insights on: relations between cartographic and other knowledge systems; how boundary maps are produced 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 welcome applicants with backgrounds in 19th/20th-century historical geography (especially in colonial contexts), political geography (especially in the politics and practice of border management and boundary delimitation), cartography, surveying, or other related fields. The research student will be supervised by Prof Phil Steinberg (Durham), Dr Léonie Newhouse (Durham), Prof Keith Lilley (Queen’s Belfast), and Dr Katie Parker (RGS) and based primarily at Durham.
A full description of the project, as well as application instructions, can be found at https://www.northernbridge.ac.uk/media/sites/teaching/northernbridge/SteinbergPhilip_Durham_RGS.pdf. Applications are due 15 January 2025, with the studentship commencing 1 October 2025.