AHRC-funded Collaborative Doctoral Project between the British Museum and the University of Lincoln

POSTED ON 26/03/2026 IN

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentship – Reconnecting museum collections with ecological knowledge in East Africa, 1870-1930 with the British Museum and the University of Lincoln

Start date: 01 October 2026

Application Deadline: 13 May 2026

Interviews will take place on 1 June 2026

This project will investigate ecological knowledge (reciprocal relationships between people and the environment and knowledge about nature and ecosytems) through material culture from East Africa that is cared for by the British Museum.

This project will be jointly supervised by Dr Zoe Cormack (Curator for Africa, Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, British Museum) and Dr Rose Taylor (Curator for North America, Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas, British Museum) and Dr Sarah Longair (Associate Professor in the History of Empire at the University of Lincoln)and Dr Tom Bishop (Senior Lecturer in American and Environmental History at the University of Lincoln).

The student will be expected to spend time at both the University of Lincoln and the British Museum, as well as becoming part of the wider cohort of CDP funded students across the UK. This student will undertake fieldwork in East Africa as part of this project.

Research questions include:

  1. How were feathers, skins and tusks used in East African material culture collected between 1870 and 1930, and why? What processes of making were involved?
  2. What do collections reveal about human/non-human interactions in East Africa in the colonial period, and how were these relationships shaped or obscured by colonial collecting practice?
  3. How do East African communities understand the changing use of these materials and objects? What can this tell us about changing ecological relationships in the era of climate crisis?

Learn more here: https://www.lincoln.ac.uk/studywithus/postgraduatestudy/researchstudentships/ (under AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentship)