Funded PhD Opportunity: Decolonial Raised Fists - Researching the Raised Fist Symbol in Anti-colonial and Anti-racist Posters in the People's History Museum's Political Poster Collection

SUMMARY

This fully funded collaborative PhD, between Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and the nationally recognised People’s History Museum (PHM) in Manchester, focuses on the analysis of the use of the iconic Raised Fist symbol in anti-colonial and anti-racist posters in PHM’s extensive political poster collection. This analysis will be undertaken with the aims of generating new knowledge about the role of political posters and their symbolism within anti-colonial and anti-racist social movements in the UK and of contributing to the fulfilment of two of PHM’s current organisational objectives: telling inclusive stories of activism and decolonising their collections.

The project will involve identifying, analysing and historically contextualising relevant case studies within the political poster collection as well as disseminating project findings to wider audiences. The project is intended to contribute to initiatives within the UK heritage industry to acknowledge histories of colonialism and racism and to have relevance to contemporary anti-racist uses of the Raised Fist. The project will have a supervisory team from the Department of Art and Performance at MMU and PHM and will involve collection-related training at PHM.

Aims and objectives

The project seeks to answer the following research questions: What can be learned about anti-colonial and anti-racist social movements from the analysis of their use of the Raised Fist in political posters? How can knowledge gained through this analysis be used to develop inclusive story telling about activism in the context of the People’s History Museum? How can this knowledge also be used to develop a decolonial approach to the People’s History Museum’s political poster collection and the museum’s collections more generally by giving histories of anti-colonial and anti-racist activism greater prominence?

The project involves five overlapping elements: collections research (using the new keyword searchable database of People’s History Museum’s poster collection to identify case studies and engaging directly with the collection), visual and textual analysis (to address the meaning and symbolism of the selected posters), historical contextualisation (to contextualise the selected posters in relation to the identities, organisational structures, and activities of the social movements that produced them), database work (to add ‘narratives’ about the case studies to the collection database), and public engagement (to disseminate project findings via such things as blogs, podcasts, and online exhibitions).

Specific requirements of the project

We encourage applications from post-graduate students with a good honours degree (upper second class and above) and desirably a masters degree, from a relevant discipline, such as Museum Studies, Art History, Design History, Visual Culture, Politics, Social Movement Studies, or History. We are particularly interested in applicants with an interest in and knowledge of decolonial theory and of histories of racism and anti-racism. We also particularly encourage Black and global majority applicants to apply.

Student eligibility 

Only open to home students.

Home fees (2022/23) included plus an annual stipend paid at the UKRI rate (£17,668 for 2022/23). 

How to apply

Interested applicants should contact Dr Simon Faulkner for an informal discussion.

For details on how to apply visit the Manchester Met website.

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