Ethical Placemaking: Consuming Present Spaces to Create Non-Anthropocentric Futures

Placemaking is a process of landscaping that simultaneously consumes space through the imposition of (human) culture and creates new spaces for the benefit of communities and society. This is a non-linear process that both materialises geographical imaginations and generates representations of possible futures that affect the collective existence of human and non-human nature alike. Considering the prevailing anthropocentric, neoliberal market-driven assumptions underpinning consumption, and the role of marketing in developing and implementing consumer-centred capitalist systems, ethical placemaking theory must be advanced to decentralise the ‘human’ within everyday landscaping practices that affect human and non-human others across different ways of organising production–consumption system development (e.g., alternative marketing channels, place management).

We are seeking PhD project proposals that weave theoretical advancements in critical marketing and human geography with empirical analyses of place-based consumption (at regional and/or hyperlocal levels), with practical implications for communities, policymakers, and organisations.

Qualifications required:
MA / MSc / MRes

Subject backgrounds considered:
This list is not exhaustive and is intended to guide applicants in highlighting the ethos and interdisciplinarity of the project:

• Critical Marketing (Consumer Research)
• Human Geography
• Sociology (e.g., Urban/Rural studies, Consumption)
• Anthropology of Consumption
• Philosophy (Ethics)

Experience/other skills and qualities required:
Qualitative research skills.

• Prof Marcus Doel
• m.a.doel@swansea.ac.uk

Browse our Postgraduate Research Programmes to find the course page you are looking for and apply using the 'Apply' button located on the page. 

You will then be redirected to our Application System where you can follow the prompts to complete your application.

Important: Please add the name of the supervisors mentioned above to your application to ensure your application reaches them. You can add their name/s on the cover sheet of your research proposal and to your personal statement.