PhD scholarship on Multiple Waterscapes in Urban Ghana

Applications are invited for a PhD scholarship on Multiple Waterscapes in Urban Ghana at the Centre of African Studies, University of Copenhagen. The scholarship is for three years and is available from 1 January 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter. The granting of the scholarship carries with it enrolment as a PhD student at the PhD school of the Faculty of Theology where the Centre of African Studies is administratively located.

The PhD scholarship is part of a DANIDA funded research project entitled ‘Multiple Waterscapes in Urban Ghana (MUWUG)’. MUWUG is an international research collaboration between the University of Copenhagen, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, the Danish Institute for International Studies and the Geneva Water Hub. The project investigates how poorer residents in different parts of Ghana’s second city, Kumasi, access clean drinking water under conditions of climate change.

The project examines what poorer people in Kumasi (Ghana) do to get clean water, and whether this depends on which part of the city they live in. It focuses on three types of urban sites that represent different configurations of residents and businesses, and different social histories and dynamics i: 1. the downtown older areas of the city where many residents are originally migrants, 2. areas that are both industrial and residential and where poorer people compete with water intensive industries and 3. sites on the edge of the city where long term residents compete with middle class people that buy land at the outskirts of the city. The study of these sites employs a combination of ethnographic and archival methods and draws from a range of disciplinary backgrounds.

The proposed PhD project (developed in the project description that is submitted as part of the PhD application) should reflect the broad aims of the project and situate itself within one of the site typologies.  The proposed PhD project should also reflect the applicant’s background and could focus on for example local politics, gender, urban studies, urban history and political ecology.

The PhD project involves conducting fieldwork in Ghana as well as conference participation, both of which is funded by the project. It requires presence and teaching at the University of Copenhagen, as well as participation in project meetings and workshops.

Read more about the project here. You are welcome to contact the Principal Investigator Karen Lauterbach for further information on the academic content of the project (email: kjl@teol.ku.dk).

Application Deadline: September 1, 2024

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