Funded Masters scholarship for egalitarian archival Practice University of Dar es Salaam and the Universities of Exeter (UK)
1. Background
A four-year (2020 – 2024) UKRI-AHRC funded project entitled ‘Imagining Futures through Un/Archived Pasts is a multidisciplinary research collaboration between the University of Dar es Salaam and the Universities of Exeter (UK) hosted in the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, College of Humanities. The project seeks to recruit 3 full-time masters’ students for 18 months to pursue master’s degree in egalitarian archiving practices (broadly construed). Archaeologists from the university of Dar es Salaam Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies, as well as other experts from the UK, Lebanon, Ghana and South Africa will supervise the prospective students.
2. Research Focus
Archives are comparatively seldom created with posterity in mind, but rather to accomplish some purpose. For example, debtors write pleading letters, officials acquit themselves of their duties through reports, literate adult’s gossip with their relatives who live at a distance, and isolated missionaries record their observations of their clients to justify their success or failure. Archiving is thus not a careless procedure. In the case of colonial enterprises as well as emerging nation-states, archiving was a crucial component that made up part of a political economy of property and power which predicated control of an implicit demand for literacy. Kept by those whom they advantaged, orally transmitted records that did not fit literate concepts of archiving were progressively devalued. The result was that the reproduction of documents construed conventionally as untrustworthy were abandoned over time and they were lost. This shows how colonial legacies of archives have challenged local realities since their inception not only in the subject of what is archived (often the monumental), but also its form (visual or textbased) which in many cases have proved unhelpful outside the conventional archive. There are also overwriting and erasure of contested memories on sites and landscape of trauma.
The Masters Scholarship for Egalitarian Archival Practice will be executed in Tanzania to involve:
- The exploration of Acts of archiving that draws on local knowledge and joint decision making in what is to be remembered or forgotten.
- Reconnoitering of tangible and intangible heritage archiving practice
- A comparative study between archives in Tanzania and those of the former colonial masters and how such documents are juxtaposed in interpretation of the history of Tanzania today.
- Documentation of archives in danger
To familiarize on this project please visit https://imaginingfutures.world/
3. Eligibility
Suitable candidates for this position should possess the following qualities: –
- Be a Tanzanian
- Hold a bachelor degree (with a 3.8 GPA or above), specializing in history, archaeology, linguistics, education, heritage management, geography, or a related field;
- Be able to work in multidisciplinary and multicultural research settings;
- Be enrolled for an 18 months Master’s program commencing with the 2021/22 academic year and be able to finish within time.
4. Scholarship Value
This scholarship will cover tuition fees, stipends and research as stipulated in the University of Dar es Salaam postgraduate guidelines. This scholarship will also provide support to allow the student to interact with the Principal Investigators of the Imagining Futures Project in UK and Tanzania and other postgraduate students at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa and the University of Ghana in Ghana.
5. How to apply
Applications should include:
i. an application letter
ii. CV
iii. academic transcripts
iv. two reference letters from your instructors in a bachelor’s degree
v. a statement of intent not more than two pages and
vi. evidence of application for masters degree at the University of Dar es Salaam for academic year 2021/2022. Send your application kit to the department coordinator of postgraduate studies at archaeology@udsm.ac.tz with a copy to udsmimaginingfutures@gmail.com by 24th October 2021. Female applicants are encouraged to apply.
6. Enquiries
For enquiries or more information about the scholarship Email udsmimaginingfutures@gmail.com or Secretary, Archaeology and Heritage Department, PO BOX 35050 Dar es Salaam with the subject MASTERS
SCHOLARSHIP FOR EGALITARIAN ARCHIVAL PRACTICE ENQUIRY
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