PhD opportunity – Heritage at the Extremes

This article was first published by the University of Stirling.

The extremes created by accelerating change create fundamental challenges to how we care for heritage, in ways that are integral to people’s environments, identities, well-being and sense of place. Twentieth-century heritage conventions, charters and policies have created an orthodoxy of preservation by arresting change. At the same time, ‘polycrises’ (interrelated crises in multiple global systems) linked to climate change and associated disasters, population displacements, extreme inequalities, and armed conflicts, demand new ways of working with heritage to create sustainable futures.

The university of Stirling are inviting applications for PhD projects focusing on how accelerating change and related ‘polycrises’ challenge the ways people think about, respond to, and mobilise heritage. The proposed research should address ‘when’ and ‘how’ heritage is made in the context of these crises and explore successful and unsuccessful responses. We expect these doctoral projects to identify local, situated practices and forms of expertise/knowledge that can be mobilised to create new ways of working with, and thinking about, heritage. Ultimately, the overarching objective of this cluster is to facilitate collaboration between doctoral researchers, professional practitioners and diverse communities/stakeholders to co-create sustainable futures for heritage, environment and society.