Language, Place and the Museum: Applied Linguistics and Critical Museology PhD Studentship University of the Arts London in United Kingdom

This PhD studentship, titled 'Language, Place and the Museum', offers an exciting opportunity to explore the dynamic relationship between language, place, and museums. The project is based at the Decolonising Arts Institute at University of the Arts London and links with the Research Centre for Transnational Art, Identity and Nation (TrAIN). It invites candidates to investigate how place is constructed, contested, and reimagined through language within museum environments, drawing on approaches from applied linguistics, critical museology, and practice-based research.

The research responds to current debates in the museum sector around multilingualism, community participation, belonging, and the civic responsibilities of cultural institutions. Museums are understood as socially situated and linguistically mediated spaces, where notions of place are reproduced through labels, catalogues, naming practices, translation, oral narration, and multilingual community interpretation. These practices shape how visitors encounter objects and the places and lives they represent, often reinforcing colonial spatial logics and epistemologies, and obscuring Indigenous and diasporic knowledge systems. However, critical and creative engagement with museum language offers transformative and decolonising potential, helping museums reimagine place-based knowledge, support multilingual heritage, and generate alternative ways of understanding belonging.

The successful applicant will have the opportunity to shape the project according to their own disciplinary, methodological, or creative interests. Possible areas of investigation include: how place is constructed, contested, and reimagined through linguistic practices in museum environments; how museum labels, catalogues, translation practices, and oral or narrative forms frame, reinforce, or disrupt colonial spatial logics and language ideologies; how multilingual and translation practices can reshape museum-based knowledges of place, particularly in relation to diasporic, Indigenous, or minoritised communities; and how creative, participatory, or language-oriented research methods can intervene in museum place-making to generate alternative interpretations and understandings of belonging.

Applicants may propose critical and/or practice-based research, including curatorial practice, art practice, creative writing, multilingual storytelling, exhibition-based inquiry, participatory research, and linguistic or institutional ethnography. The project particularly welcomes applications from candidates whose lived experience of multilingualism, migration, or cultural displacement informs their research or practice.

The project is developed in partnership with Manchester Museum, with a key point of engagement being the museum’s Multilingual Museum platform. This platform invites participants to translate and respond to collection objects in multiple languages, and the studentship offers an opportunity to explore how multilingual interpretation might be sustained or extended across digital systems, galleries, and community-facing museum practice. Manchester Museum will support the doctoral researcher through access to collections, digital resources, staff expertise, community networks, and practical resources such as desk and meeting space. The researcher will engage with the museum throughout the project and develop public-facing outputs, including events, programming, or collaborative activities with the partner organisation.

Supervision is provided by Dr Victoria Odeniyi (critical applied linguist), Dr Anjalie Dalal-Clayton (art historian and museologist), and Prof Paul Goodwin (curator with expertise in urbanism, migration, and transnational exhibition practices). Their complementary expertise offers a strong interdisciplinary foundation across applied linguistics, museum studies, decolonial and transnational art histories, and creative research methods. Supervision is further strengthened by the partnership with Manchester Museum, with key staff acting as mentors to the student.

Part-time study is possible, and engagement with Manchester Museum will be arranged flexibly according to the needs of the student and project. Applicants should have a strong academic background in a relevant discipline and an interest in critical, creative, or practice-based research. No specific degree level, GPA, or language test requirements are mentioned. The application deadline is May 11, 2026.

For further information and to apply, review the application guidance and submit your application via the University of the Arts London website.