CoSS PhD Studentship - Capturing Felt Experiences of Place

Information on the School/Research Group

The PhD student would be part of Urban Studies in the School of Social and Political Sciences.

Abstract

Place is the foundation stone of individual and collective life, a geographic location, and the site of lived and felt experiences. However, both our existing attachments to place and our felt experiences of place, defined as the ‘way we feel in and about places and the felt relationships we have to and within place’ are often neglected within place-based policies and practices. Given the focus on an emerging place agenda, through ‘Levelling Up’ across the UK, the ‘Place Principle’ in Scotland and also through regional inequality initiatives internationally such as the ‘Build Back Better Regional Challenge’ in the USA now is a timely moment to consider how best to capture felt experiences in ways that can guide and inform place-based decisions that are more sensitive to, and inclusive of, people’s felt relationships with place. A specific focus within this context is the need to develop new kinds of methods and metrics that can capture the lived and felt experiences of place. This point is expressly acknowledged within local and national rhetoric, see for example, the Technical Annex to the Levelling Up White Paper, where metrics for place-based work including aspects such as pride of place and belonging are considered to be ‘exploratory’ and/or in their ‘infancy’.

The PhD connects with ongoing work within the AHRC Place Programme (www.gla.ac.uk/place), led by the first supervisor, Professor Rebecca Madgin, to conceptualise the felt experiences of place and to explore complementary methods and metrics that can secure more place-sensitive policies and practices.

The exact nature of the PhD would be determined with the successful candidate but provisionally the PhD could be split into three connecting themes: 1. Conceptual development of place-based felt experiences 2. Methodological approaches to capturing people’s felt experiences of place, for example, what metrics and methods already exist and what could be developed in terms of co-produced mixed methods 3. Recommendations for capturing felt experiences within place-sensitive policies and practices.

Additional information

The PhD student would be supervised by Professor Rebecca Madgin, Programme Director for UKRI/AHRC’s Place-Based Research Programme and Professor of Urban Studies, School of Social and Political Sciences. The student would also be supervised by Professor João Porto de Albuquerque from the Urban Big Data Centre who works on participatory urban analytics and so would welcome applicants who are interested in creative practices, qualitative, quantitative and/or mixed methods approaches.

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria

• Applicants will have a good Master’s degree (or overseas equivalent)
• Applicants will have a demonstratable interest in the topic area under investigation.
• Applicants can study part-time or full-time.

Please note that all applicants must also meet the entry requirements for the Urban Studies, PhD.

Application process

Applicants must apply via the Scholarships Application Portal, uploading the following documentation:

•  CoSS PhD Studentship - Capturing Felt Experiences of Place application form (in Word format)
• Academic transcripts (All relevant Undergraduate and Master’s level degree transcripts (and translations, if not originally in English) – provisional transcripts are sufficient if you are yet to complete your degree).
• Academic Prizes
• 2 written references (where possible your references should include an academic familiar with your work. Both references can be from academics but you may include a work reference, especially if you have been out of academia for more than 5 years).
• Curriculum Vitae (CV) (academic where applicable).