[Commlist] PhD studentship opportunities in photographic history at JOMEC (Cardiff University)

We are advertising two exciting PhD studentships at the School of 
Journalism, Media & Culture at Cardiff University.
We’d be very grateful if you could share details of these opportunities 
with any potential applicants.

The first project, developed in partnership with Historic England, is 
titled ‘Traces of Empire in the Built Environment: Exploring the 
Collective Memory of Colonialism through the Photographic Collections of 
the Historic England Archive’ (application deadline: Monday 25th January 
2021).
The second project, developed in partnership with Amnesty International, 
is titled ‘Amnesty, Archives, Activism: Photojournalism and the 
Development of Human Rights Media Campaigns in Britain since the 1960s’ 
(application deadline: Wednesday 3 February 2021).


++++

Traces of Empire in the Built Environment: Exploring the Collective 
Memory of Colonialism through the Photographic Collections of the 
Historic England Archive

The project aims to use historic photographs to tease out the multiple 
ways in which the English built environment has been formed and reformed 
through its links to empire. This will include an examination of a wide 
range of areas, including the construction of monuments and statuary, 
the creation of buildings and spaces, and the work of the tens of 
thousands of people who travelled from the Caribbean, Africa, and Asia 
and found work as architects and builders in England’s cities. The 
photography collections of the Historic England Archive provide a unique 
and currently underexplored resource for exploring these themes. The 
Archive’s collection of 9 million images is one of the largest 
photography collections in the country, and provides a crucial window 
into the shaping of the built environment.

The studentship is funded by the UK’s Arts & Humanities Research 
Council, supported by the South West & Wales Doctoral Partnership and 
co-supervised by the universities of Cardiff and Bristol.
Further details about the studentship can be found here: 
https://www.sww-ahdtp.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/CDA-1-Photographic-Traces.Further-Details.pdf 

Details of the application process are provided here: 
https://www.sww-ahdtp.ac.uk/prospective-students/apply/collaborative-doctoral-award-projects-2021/ 

The deadline for applications is Monday 25th January 2021.


Amnesty, Archives, Activism: Photojournalism and the Development of 
Human Rights Media Campaigns in Britain since the 1960s

The project will examine important photographic histories around Amnesty 
International’s early campaigning to reflect on past and current 
attitudes and priorities regarding news coverage of human rights violations.
The interplay of international geopolitical issues and news media 
strategies has long been central to the history of NGOs and campaign 
groups, from the International Committee of the Red Cross after 1918 to 
#BlackLivesMatter activism today. Amnesty International was established 
in 1961 when Peter Benenson was prompted to action having seen newspaper 
coverage of the imprisonment of Portuguese students for drinking a toast 
to liberty during the Salazar dictatorship. The famous ‘Forgotten 
Prisoners’ article in The Observer (28 May 1961) included photographs of 
6 individuals. The importance of photography is thus threaded through 
all aspects of human rights activism, from research and 
behind-the-scenes pressure, to public media campaigns. While photography 
has long been central to campaigning, its complex history of production 
and circulation, its ways of constructing meaning, and its value to 
activism, are insufficiently examined by academic researchers and human 
rights activists. This interdisciplinary research project addresses two 
broad research questions: (1) What role did photography play in the 
emergence of Amnesty International in the 1960s? (2) What lessons can be 
drawn from this history for human rights activism today?  The project 
has been developed with Amnesty International’s Photographic Officer, 
Head of Audio Visual, and Head of Archives. It will be supervised in 
partnership with the School of Journalism, Media and Culture (JOMEC) at 
Cardiff University. Archival research will focus on Amnesty’s extensive 
collection of photographic prints and negatives, its publications 
library and JOMEC’s historic newspapers and magazine holdings. The 
project will recover important photographic histories around Amnesty’s 
early campaigning to reflect on past and current attitudes and 
priorities regarding news coverage of human rights violations.
 Amnesty will support career development opportunities enhancing the 
student’s expertise in archival methods and awareness of the 
socio-political context in which NGOs operate. The studentship also 
provides knowledge exchange opportunities between JOMEC and Amnesty with 
potential to rethink how historical and modern photographic material is 
commissioned, preserved and mobilised through Amnesty’s partnerships 
with journalists when challenging anti-democratic practices curtailing 
freedom of expression.
 This collaboration will involve joint decisions about research 
methods, conceptual approaches and project priorities. A focus on 
photographic material and news coverage necessitates use of methods 
across cultural, visual and journalism studies. Analysing organisational 
documents, photographic collections and original publications, 
historical and archival research will be vital. Understanding imagery’s 
role in public discourse also demands critical interpretative frames 
including discourse and visual analyses. These may be supplemented by 
interviews with key actors and/or focus groups to map the efficacy of 
campaign strategies. Ultimately, the combination of interdisciplinary 
research methods will be determined in partnership between the student, 
JOMEC and Amnesty in response to the agreed focus of the project.  The 
project is funded through the ‘Journalism & Democracy’ pathway of the 
ESRC Wales Doctoral Partnership. Addressing the importance of 
photography to human rights campaigning, this project fits the remit of 
JOMEC’s Tom Hopkinson Centre for Media History and the School’s 
commitment to open, informed, high-quality journalism.

 The studentship is funded through the ‘Journalism & Democracy’ pathway 
of the ESRC Wales Doctoral Training Partnership. Further details about 
eligibility and the application process can be found here: 
https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/amnesty-archives-activism-photojournalism-and-the-development-of-human-rights-media-campaigns-in-britain-since-the-1960s/?p128411 
   The deadline for applications is Wednesday 3 February 2021.

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