Study at Cardiff

(Re)-Constructing Multiculturalism

This is a Cardiff University President's Research Scholarship, part of a new £4M investment to coincide with the inauguration of Professor Sir Martin Evans (Nobel Prize for Medicine 2007) as Cardiff’s new President. All of the University Schools and Research Centres offering opportunities under the programme have demonstrated the real potential of the Scholarships to contribute to research excellence through significant, challenging and original PhD research projects and excellent PhD supervision and support. Other attractive features of the Scholarships include the presence of multiple President’s Scholars in each of the research areas and the guaranteed exposure of President’s Scholars to innovative technologies, theories, methodological approaches, and debates.

Societies around the world are becoming increasingly diverse in ethnic, religious and cultural terms. (Re)-Constructing Multiculturalism is a new, cutting-edge venture within the Humanities Schools at Cardiff University, bringing together academic staff and postgraduate students in humanities and social science disciplines to study and analyse how we are dealing with that diversity. (Re)-Constructing Multiculturalism consists of a research network that links together a series of workshops, seminars, and conferences, along with a number of PhD scholarships to support postgraduate work in this area.

The research undertaken by the President’s Research Scholarship students will explore the ways in which ‘multiculturalism’ was a cultural construct of particular historical circumstances and how the dangers of national dissolution on the one hand, and of discrimination against minorities on the other, may be confronted by its re-construction. Research will thereby contribute to public understanding, theory and policy formation, and creative production in areas, for example, of:

• The interactions between minority languages, multilingualism, lingua franca and cultural identity;
• The display and performance of religion, ethnic and cultural identities;
• Memories and minorities within Wales;
• Parallel legal systems and ethnocultural justice;
• The destruction of multicultural communities through ethnic or nationalist violence and other forms of cultural aggression;
• Cultural expression and cultural interaction in architecture and the built environment.

The programme will train future researchers and academics with a varied set of intellectual tools for analysing cultural phenomena and the realities of contemporary Welsh, British and international cultures within a perspective of constant ‘re-constructing’.

Researchers will be prepared for academic careers, to which, in addition to their specialist knowledge, they will bring the intellectual and methodological synergies of the multidisciplinary environment, and add to human capital in a broad range of public-facing professions in which an active and constructive attitude to multicultural phenomena are an essential component.

The (Re)-Constructing Multiculturalism venture draws on a pool of internationally-recognised and experienced supervisors, who have published widely in the different aspects of the field.  Their activities and those of others involved with the project are establishing Cardiff as an international focus in relation to a range of areas of linguistic and cultural issues in multiculturalism.

Research areas

Cardiff has supervisory expertise in the following areas:

• Minority languages & linguistic diversity (minority language communities; language planning and policy; sociolinguistics of Wales; language attitudes; language and globalisation)
• Race, ethnicity, belief (postcolonialism; cultural identity & collective memory; Butetown; race & popular culture; migration & visual culture; Welsh migrants; Bangladeshi communities; Islam in Britain)
• Postcolonialism & intercultural relations (imperialism & multiculturalism; South Asia, Tibet & China; China & the West; multiculturalism in the Mediterranean World)
• Ethnocultural justice (rights; identity & politics; legal cultures)
• Muliculturalism in history (multiculturalism in the Mediterranean World; Wales-Ireland & ‘four-nations’ Britain; postcolonialism and ethnic diversity in medieval Wales)
• Translating cultures

The following academic Schools are associated with this project: School of English, Communication and Philosophy; School of European Languages, Translation and Politics; School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies; School of History, Archaeology and Religion; School of Welsh.

Funding

These are Cardiff University President's Research Scholarships.

Two awards are available including full UK/EU tuition fees plus a doctoral stipend matching UK Research Council National Minimum (£13,590 for 2012/13).

Number of Awards Available: 2

Eligibility

Academic Criteria:

The student profile sought is high-calibre, independent thinking and innovative graduates with cross-disciplinary interests and ambitions. Applicants will need to demonstrate their preparedness and potential through their record of academic achievement and/or other relevant experiences, and their plans for research study.

Residency: These awards are open to students of any nationality. Non-EU overseas students will have to cover the difference between UK/EU and Overseas Fees themselves.

How to Apply

1. Applicants are advised to contact the named contact for the (Re)-Constructing Multiculturalism President's Scholarship to discuss a potential project/supervisor (see below for details).

2. A formal University application must be submitted using the Online Application Service for the research programme agreed with the potential project supervisor.

3. Applicants should then apply for the Scholarship using the President's Research Scholarship Application Form available at: www.cardiff.ac.uk/ugc/re-constructing-multiculturalism-studentships 

Application deadline: 1st March 2013

Further Information

For more information contact Rebecca Green:
Email: UGC@cardiff.ac.uk
Telephone: 029 2087 9406

For more information on please visit http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/ugc/re-constructing-multiculturalism-studentships