The Violent States, States of Violence Research Project at the University of the Witwatersrand invites applications for PhD Scholarships 2021 in the field of violence studies! Apply now!
The centrality of violence to colonialism, imperialism and global and local forms of domination calls for a rethinking of social science assumptions. For the purposes of this project, the investigators take as a starting point a focus on the relationship between states, citizens, subjecthood, politics and violence; and at the same time are convinced that the workings of politically inflected forms of violence require that they rethink prevailing concepts of the state, democracy, citizenship and politics. In all of these instances, they need to rethink and disaggregate the state and its contradictory forms and practices, making use of or rethinking concepts such as ‘violent pluralism’, ‘brown/grey zones’ of politics where violence produces low-intensity citizenship, ‘violent democracy’ or ‘disjunctive democracy’.
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Students must formally register at the institution in 2021 to conduct violence research within any disciplinary field at the University of the Witwatersrand. This project has a wide-ranging of interests. Topics already accepted include:
- Protesting unemployment and precarity? Mapping community perspectives
- On the vampire protests in Mulanje district, Malawi
- Wartime rape, gender and militarism in the DRC
- Trans(gender), violence, and the clinic: narratives of medical transition in South Africa
The interesting proposals are on:
- Violence associated with mining
- Violence and the production of embodied subjectivities
- Understanding the interactional and situational dimensions of observable enactments of violence captured on camera
- Moralities of violence
- Any other topic that meets the broad requirements of this call.
Location:
South AfricaBenefits
Successful applicants will benefit from a strong, supportive and collaborative interdisciplinary research environment. There will also be modest funds available for research implementation costs-
- The value of the scholarship is PhD scholarships are for four years @ R135,000 per annum
- Recipients of scholarships will have the opportunity to participate in all colloquia, international conferences and research events associated with the overarching project
Eligibilities
Eligibility and requirements:
- Excellent Masters results
- A research project that focuses on violence research
- Preference will be given to Black South African applicants.
Application Process
The application should include:
- A detailed and up to date CV including contact details for two academic referees.
- Certified copies of degrees and an academic transcript.
- While, in principle, prospective recipients are not precluded from receiving other funding, all such funding applied for and/or received must be disclosed at the time of application. Prospective recipients are expected to be fully committed to the Violent States, States of Violence research project.
- If you have already been accepted for a PhD programme at Wits and have been assigned a supervisor, please provide these details.
- If you have not yet applied to or been accepted into a programme at Wits, please indicate your disciplinary field and (if you have one) a preferred supervisor.
- If your proposal has already been approved and accepted by a Faculty, please supply a copy of this proposal and a covering letter explaining how you envisage this project as contributing to and benefitting from the broader Violent States, States of Violence research agenda.
- If you have not yet submitted a proposal to Faculty, please provide a brief concept paper (not more than 1000 words) outlining your proposed research and how it would articulate with the Violent States, States of Violence research project.
Please submit your application to [email protected]. Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed and outcomes will be known by early August.
Looking for fully-funded opportunities, install the Youth Opportunities Android or iOS App here.
Application Deadline: July 15, 2021
Application ClosedOfficial link
