PhD Studentship: The Role of Prison Museums in Public Culture: The Case of Peterhead

Prison museums are part of Scotland’s cultural heritage tourism portfolio, serving as iconic public history venues that interpret historical and contemporary narratives of crime, punishment and incarceration. This interdisciplinary project would examine the challenges and potential in making Peterhead Prison Museum’s curatorial approach to a complex and challenging social history ethically responsible and engaging. Placing Peterhead in a wider context of prison museums internationally, the successful candidate for this fully funded opportunity will use chiefly qualitative, and discourse analytical methods, with the aim of showing how Peterhead can evolve its interpretive and community outreach strategies to meet the needs of visitors and community stakeholders.

This project would be the first detailed study of prison heritage in Scotland. Its approach would be innovative, approaching Scotland’s engagement with penal history through an interdisciplinary perspective, drawing on insights from dark tourism, tourism management, cultural heritage and critical prison studies. 

The candidate will address the following research questions:

• What are current trends in prison museums internationally?
• What is the social responsibility of PPM as a public history resource?
• What is the local community’s involvement with, and reaction to PPM?
• How can the museum address peripherality and seasonality as a remote visitor attraction?
• What perspectives do various visitor groups (grouped by, for example, age, origin and motivations) have of the museum?
• In its exhibits and interpretive work, how can the museum achieve an ethically responsible balance between victims’ rights, prisoners’ voices and the perspectives of prison staff?
• What interpretive approaches would be appropriate for telling the story of notorious and controversial former prisoners, including those who were imprisoned for sexual offences?

To address the above questions, the candidate will initially undertake a literature review drawing on insights from dark tourism, museology and curatorship in difficult heritage, and critical prison studies. A theoretical framework will then be developed around prisons as public cultural and educational resources. Primary data will be gathered during this phase by undertaking ethnographic and other qualitative data gathering methods, including overt participant observation of visitors, focus groups with community stakeholders, and visitor surveys to gather a body of data that sheds light on visitor and community engagement, and visitor experience/expectations. Data analysis will focus on identifying opportunities for new interpretive strategies, new ethically responsible and balanced exhibits, and new approaches to community outreach, as well as strategies to address seasonality and peripherality.

The successful candidate would be expected to carry out a 6-month work-based learning placement at Peterhead Prison Museum during the second year of this project.

To apply for this position, please provide a CV and produce a 500-word narrative that tells us how you would take this project forward based on your knowledge and experience, which should include a master’s qualification in a relevant area.

Please contact Dr Craig Wight with any queries c.wight@napier.ac.uk

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