Doctoral studentships: Understanding Conflict (EXPIRED)

Understanding Conflict: Forms and Legacies of Violence

Applications invited for three doctoral studentships

Justice, Memory and Experience in Reconciliation after Conflict

 Supervisors: Prof Graham Dawson, Dr Louise Purbrick, Duncan Barron

This scholarship is predicated on the understanding that reconciliation after conflict involves questions of justice rooted in and informed by the experience of those directly affected.  You will explore theoretical accounts of transitional justice considered in relation both to theories of the psycho-social after-effects of violence and to the narratives and memories of violence offered by victims/survivors of conflict, with the aim of building an account of reconciliatory practice that is sensitive to the interplay between these issues. In exploring different ways of representing traumatic experiences and memories of violent conflict in relation both to theory and to the practical understandings of victims/survivors, you will engage with the work of victims’/survivors’ groups in developing both the direction of your research and a specific case study. The successful candidate will demonstrate awareness of the ethical implications of collaborative research involving traumatic experiences of this kind.

What Constitutes Violence? Victims, Survivors and TraumaSupervisors: Prof Bob Breher, Dr Mark Devenney, Dr Michael Neu

Recent scholarship has reconceptualised violence taking into account two aspects unrecognised in the liberal/empiricist paradigm. First, scholars have extended analysis to the different forms of violence - psychological, structural and physical (in for example Zizek’s work). Second, scholars have investigated how the different ‘experiences’ of violence might find adequate forms of representation, without doing to damage to these traumatic experiences. And what might be the implications of this for an understanding of violence more generally? You will engage with this body of critical theoretical scholarship, seeking to refine both the conceptualisation of violence, and the relationships between this conceptualisation and an ethics of violence.

Memorial Landscapes: Negotiating Post-conflict Spaces

Supervisors: Dr Lucy Noakes, Dr Catherine Palmer, Dr Leila Dawney

This scholarship will investigate the temporal, cultural, material and experiential dimensions of ‘post-conflict’ spaces, understood as spaces where legacies of war and conflict may endure in memory, practice, unrest and community relations, and where meanings about past and present are created, lived, contested and negotiated. Working with and developing a range of conceptual approaches utilised by the ‘spatial turn’ within historical, cultural and memory studies, you will focus on a specific memorial landscape or heritage site as a means of investigating and widening our knowledge of how the continuing legacies of war and conflict are engaged in ‘post-conflict’ spaces. Both the case chosen for analysis and the particular mix of approaches will be proposed by applicants and the successful candidate will negotiate the latter with their supervisors.

The application deadline is 4pm, 27 June 2013.

To apply, visit: http:www.brighton.ac.uk:researchstudy:2013studentships:important-for-your-application.

For more information, visit:

 http://www.brighton.ac.uk/researchstudy/2013studentships.

For informal discussion, contact any of the supervisors above.