PhD opportunities

Making Geography Matter: Opening up the Doreen Massey Archive

Applications are invited for an Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP-funded Collaborative Doctoral Award at The Open University, in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG).

This fully funded studentship is available from October 2025. Further details about the value of an Open-Oxford-Cambridge AHRC DTP award are available on the DTP’s studentships page. 

Closing date: 7th January 2025, midday UK time

Project overview

Doreen Massey (1944-2016) changed geography. Her theoretical work on space, place and power helped enliven and transform debates across the discipline and well beyond, bringing many into the conversation over the difference that geography makes. As a prolific public speaker, committed activist, and longstanding educator at the Open University, Massey was a thoroughly public intellectual: from shaping the Greater London Council’s social and economic strategies in the 1980s through to Hugo Chávez adopting her concept of ‘power geometries’ in Venezuela at the turn of the century. Not only did Massey articulate how the geographical and political are inherently intertwined, but she was insistent that a lively understanding of spatial politics is integral to opening up new possibilities for living together in a changing world.

Doreen Massey’s unpublished archive—held at the Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)— contains documents related to all of these as well as further endeavours. It is made up of extensive documentary, audio and visual materials such as: unpublished conference papers; preparatory notes for manuscripts; communications with different academics, activists and political figures; draft policy papers; recordings of unpublished lectures; transcripts from BBC broadcasts; collective teaching material correspondence, and more.

We welcome and encourage the candidate to think critically and creatively with the archive in a variety of different ways. Given the wealth of materials, potential research questions might include:

• How is geographical knowledge produced, translated and reimagined across different academic, public and political worlds?
• What is involved in the making of an organic public intellectual, and what might it mean to become a public geographer in the political present?
• How can academic geographical ideas become popular and politically relevant?
• How did ideas of articulation come to inform Massey’s relational understanding of space, and what is the significance of thinking in terms of relations today?
• How does an academic discipline such as geography remain critical, timely and relevant whilst responding conceptually, ethically, and practically with past inheritances?

The candidate is expected to develop their own methodological approach depending on the shape research takes, yet the PhD is expected to be underpinned by two key sensibilities: firstly, a feminist politics going ‘beyond biography’ to think relationally about the politics of knowledge production. This means pushing against narratives of the ‘heroic’ academic individual by situating the many different connections (and disconnections) informing Massey’s intellectual and political trajectory. Secondly, to anchor the PhD within critical archive theory and historical geographies to consider the ethics of working with archives of the recent past. Given the sensitivities involved in working with the materials of an influential figure, including issues of privacy and consent related to still-living people, we expect the successful candidate to carefully consider research ethics of working with digitised archival materials in the current moment.

The successful candidate will be embedded within a wider project. As such, there will be opportunities to work together with the project team to interview Doreen’s interlocutors and collaborators to conduct in-depth examination into the making and moving of geographical ideas and how this might help interpret and intervene in the current conjuncture. The candidate will also benefit from taking part in wider public activities with cultural institutions, organising exhibitions, as well as the opportunity to give a public lecture in the ‘Be Inspired by the Collections’ series at the RGS (with IBG).

The PhD provides a unique opportunity to study within a department committed to making public education open. It will help enable access to engage in conversation with colleagues, past and present, who have differently worked towards thinking space relationally. And through becoming central to the wider Massey archives project team, the successful applicant will be supported in their development through becoming part of a research collective encouraging collaborative work and public engagement. They will benefit from the experience in helping facilitate exhibitions and gain curating experience, as well as develop critical skills in the digital humanities such as exploring innovative ways of contextualising and communicating archival materials.

The candidate will also become part of the wider CDA community at the RGS-IBG, who have a rich history of co-producing outputs of intersecting aspects of their work. Many CDAs work on various aspects of geographies of knowledge and the history of the discipline.

Supervision

The candidate will be co-supervised between The Open University and The Royal Geographical Society. Dr Carry van Lieshout, Dr Colin Lorne and Dr Ben Newman will act as supervisors from The Open University. Drs Van Lieshout, Lorne and Newman collectively work on the ‘Stories-So-Far: Doreen Massey Archives’ project, and each bring specific expertise to the team: Newman was involved in the initial archiving of the collection at the RGS-IBG and has researched the ethics of archives and the historical geographies of knowledge production and circulation; Lorne has extensive experience working with Massey’s conceptual and political work; while Van Lieshout is an historical geographer working on women’s lives with expertise in ‘beyond biography’ methodologies.

Dr Catherine Souch will take the supervisory role on behalf of The Royal Geographical Society. Dr Souch is Head of Research and Higher Education at the RGS-IBG and has extensive experience of archival research. In addition, she has considerable experience in the supervision of postgraduate students, having successfully supervised 11 AHRC CDAs to completion.

The candidate shall have access to all Open University doctoral training opportunities, and be able to take part in professional development opportunities at the OU such as the Graduate Lecturing and Teaching Schemes, which offers PGRs training in distance learning as well as more traditional university lecturing. The successful candidate will also become a member of the OpenSpace Research Centre.

In addition, the candidate will have access to a workspace in the Foyle Reading Room at the RGS-IBG and full access to the Wiley Digital Archives platform. The candidate will also be assisted in their research by a team of qualified archivists.

How to apply

In making an application you are applying to both the OOC DTP and to the OU. This means you will need to complete two application forms. Please read OU guidance and OOC guidance before completing the application forms

• OOC DTP Application form – this includes research proposal and suitability to undertake the proposed research project.
• OU Application form  and the documents listed in the application check list.
• You are reminded that you must sign the form and should give the names and addresses of two academic referees and their institutional email addresses who are willing to comment on your academic achievements to date and on your potential for undertaking research. (Please check that your referees will be available to be contacted during the application period.)  
• For general enquiries relating to doctoral study at The Open University, please contact FASS-PhD-Applications@open.ac.uk.
• For general academic enquiries, please contact carry.van-lieshout@open.ac.uk.
• Please send completed applications to  FASS-PhD-Applications@open.ac.uk indicating your subject area in the subject of your application email (e.g. SURNAME_Initial_Subject Area_OOC _DTP_CDA)

We strongly recommend that you make contact with Carry van Lieshout (carry.van-lieshout@open.ac.uk) at the earliest stage so that we can work with you to maximise your potential for a successful application and to advise on any aspects of the application process. Please note you are responsible for making sure that all required documents, including references, are submitted before midday 7th January 2025 and meet the University’s requirements. If your application is submitted late, and/or it is incomplete, it will not normally be assessed.