Creative Responses to the Refugee Crisis in Contemporary France

According to current statistics, published by the UNHCR (the UN Refugee Agency), over 65.6 million people have been forced to leave their homes, including 22.5 million refugees. These figures represent the highest levels of displacement on record. This project will focus on the ways in which creative practitioners in contemporary France have responded to the forced displacement of asylum-seekers and refugees who are based in France. The project is centrally concerned with the ways in which such artists collaborate with asylum-seekers and refugees in order to facilitate the emergence of the complex stories and lived experiences of people on the move. In both cases, the main focus of the PhD project is to examine the multiple ways in which creative responses to the global refugee crisis, as it is played out in contemporary France, shed light on dominant narratives about the nation-state, border control and integration, through their articulation of questions relating to solidarity, subjectivities and agency.

Candidates should apply for a PhD place in the normal way, stating:
o ‘Elphinstone PhD Scholarship’ in the Intended Source of Funding section
o The name of the lead supervisor in the Name of Proposed Supervisor section
o The title of the specific research project in the Outline Summary section