We welcome applications for funded 4-year PhD studentships to start in September 2021. This is an exciting opportunity for an ambitious, talented and enthusiastic researcher to conduct interdisciplinary research in order to advance thinking within the area of blue-green humanities through researching both local customs and British inheritances around access to water.
Water was integral to the success of plantation agriculture in the British Empire during and after the period of slavery. Tropical crops such as the ‘ever-thirsty’ sugar cane were grown on islands surrounded by seas and marketed across oceans. Coerced labour was brought to places like the Caribbean and Queensland by water and remained attached to the sea and to rivers, as well as work patterns being governed by access to the water which plantation crops required. Rights of access to water and planter and state ability to harness rainfall and water supplies to plantations were essential – and as yet understudied – features of the plantation system in landscapes transformed in unprecedented ways by human activity, with significant implications for water supply. Rainfall fluctuated regionally, was seasonally variable and often insufficient.
This project will examine both local customs and British inheritances around access to water in order to contribute to a growing literature on the management of plantations and the consequences for enslaved cultures in some or all of the British Caribbean, Queensland or the Cape Colony.
Contact for enquiries
[Email Address Removed]
Find out more through our webinar
Watch this recording of our webinar, to help you find out more about the Leverhulme Doctoral Scholarships Centre for Water Cultures. Hear from programme leaders, project supervisors and researchers, including answers to questions posted in the Q&A. Watch here
If you just want to find out more about this research proposal, watch the presentation by the Lead Supervisor here.
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