Revisioning the Mire: ‘Improving’ the valuations of wetland ecosystems

This Research & Knowledge Exchange Doctoral Project brief summarises our priority areas of research interest under the heading of: Revisioning the Mire: ‘improving’ the valuations of wetland ecosystems.

We welcome all research degree applications aligned with and in response to this brief.

Culturally and socially, wetland habitats (which include peat bogs and moors, marshes, fenlands, swamps, lagoons and saltmarshes) have long been regarded badly; as ‘wastelands’ at best in need of being ‘reclaimed’ or ‘improved’ for agriculture and at worst, associated with disease, poverty and ignorance. Wetlands are often depicted negatively and exist within the popular imaginations as places for malevolent and nefarious activities.  

They have been subject to immense landscaping by humans and perhaps more than other kinds of ecosystems, reveal modernity’s excessive desire to manipulate and control the natural environment. Wetlands have a particular significance in relation to the Anthropocene and the climate emergency: As well as sites of great biodiversity, wetlands are hugely important for carbon sequestration. In a local context, peatlands store more CO2 than any other kinds of habitat in the UK but globally, peatlands are in such poor conditions that they are net producers of CO2 (UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology). 

Revisioning the Mire invites applications for projects that wish to explore research questions surrounding: 

• The role that representations of wetlands have played in shaping their cultural valuation. 
• How cultural and social representations of wetlands have contributed to the climate emergency. 
• How photography and lens-based media might be used to transform cultural valuations of wetland ecosystems. 
• How lens-based media, with which cultures of extraction are deeply enmeshed, can be used to benefit wetland ecosystems.    

Despite the damaging environmental effects of its extraction, peat continues to mined in many areas including the British Isles, but degradation and destruction of wetland ecosystems occurs across the globe. We welcome practice-based projects that examine wetlands in any region and in all conditions (e.g. in good health, denuded, post-industrial or undergoing regeneration, rewilding etc.).  

Proposals that challenge received boundaries of lens-based media, new media and blended realities, and connect with other disciplines and fields of research and institutions are especially welcomed.  

Projects deriving from this brief are expected to sit within the Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy and the following department.

All successful research degree project proposals must emphasise a clear alignment between the project idea and our Research & Knowledge Exchange strategy.