AHRC Recovering the Relics of War: Exploring ways in which the material culture recovered from sites of conflict can be used in affective storytelling

AHRC Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentship with Imperial War Museums and the University of Leicester

Recovering the Relics of War: Exploring ways in which the material culture recovered from sites of conflict can be used in affective storytelling 

The Imperial War Museums (IWM) and Museum Studies, School of Heritage and Culture at the University of Leicester are pleased to invite applications from suitably qualified applicants for a Collaborative Doctoral Partnership (CDP) studentship, funded (fees and living allowance) by the UK Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), to conduct research leading to a PhD on the theme Recovering the Relics of War: Exploring ways in which the material culture recovered from sites of conflict can be used in affective storytelling. 

Supervisors:

• Dr Stacy Boldrick  slb89@leicester.ac.uk
• Professor Sandra Dudley  shd3@leicester.ac.uk
• Dr Hattie Hearn (Imperial War Museums)  HHearn@iwm.org.uk

Project description:

Material fragments surviving from sites of conflict can be both treasured and neglected by museums. Many take the form of fragments – shrapnel, parts of ships or aircraft – and some arrive as personal collections. Known as ‘battlefield relics’, they are highly valued as historical artefacts that can, like religious relics or memorials, represent events and people: battles, combatants, civilians and nations. However, they can also be neglected as objects rendered invisible by their long-term situation in storage or displayed with no acknowledgement of the personal stories behind their recovery. As a result, these relics often become unintentionally forgotten; a fate that generates another kind of loss.
This doctoral project specifically responds to this problem by rediscovering the social and emotional meanings of First and Second World War battlefield relics through archival research. An innovative collaboration between Museum Studies at the University of Leicester and the Imperial War Museums explores the histories and symbolic and emotional significance of these artefacts in the museum’s collections, and in other national UK collections, to further understand them and their place in narratives of the First and Second World Wars. New scholarly approaches in iconoclasm studies, memory studies and museum studies will inform the research and bring social and emotional vitality to the display of battlefield relics.
This fully-funded PhD project also forms part of the anniversary celebrations that mark 60 years of global impact of Museum Studies at Leicester. During this time, the University of Leicester has acquired a global reputation for leading-edge thinking and experimental practice in Museum Studies.

Research questions include:

• How do objects recovered from sites of conflict become imbued with symbolic meaning, and what processes govern their transformation into relics? 
• What role does provenance play in the perceived authenticity and emotional resonance of battlefield relics within museum collections? 
• How do relics function as substitutes for the ‘Missing’ in post-conflict societies, and what does this reveal about collective mourning and memory? 
• How can this research inform how relics are conserved, interpreted and displayed to affectively engage visitors with the stories behind their creation and collection? 

The challenges for the study and display of these museum artefacts are complex for different reasons. Some are materially fragile and require conservation. Damaged artefacts can be visually unappealing or unrecognisable. Many lack substantial documentation. Most are in storage. Yet they are all multivalent human memorials, representing the war dead and missing, and the survivors who recovered them (Stewart, 2020; Buchli and Lucas, 2002). How society assigns meaning to battlefield relics depends on the information held and shared by the museum, and how the museum tells their stories.

This project responds to these challenges by undertaking archival research into the provenance, symbolism and affective meanings of battlefield relics. It brings together emerging and established interdisciplinary research in several fields to return personal, social and emotional aspects to their histories to significantly advance current knowledge and understanding of battlefield relics. These fields include museum studies (emotion, materiality, the ‘social life’ of objects; Varutti, 2023; Smith et al., 2018; Dudley 2010; Appadurai, 1988); memory and war studies (Winter 2022; Munroe, 2017; Huyssen, 2016; Clark, 2013; Cornish, 2004; Buchli & Lucas, 2002); conflict heritage research (Zarandona et al., 2023); 'hidden histories'/ iconoclasm (Bounia & Witcomb, 2024; Boldrick, 2020; Reeves & Heath-Kelly, 2020).  

All CDP projects are part of a nationwide programme called the Collaborative Doctoral Partnership consortium. The CDP consortium will host an online webinar for prospective applicants on 13 April 2026 at 11:00. These webinars will provide an overview of the CDP funding scheme.  To sign up for a webinar, please email cdp@vam.ac.uk with the subject line “Prospective Applicant Webinar” from the email address you would like to join the online meeting from. Sign up will close on 10 April 2026 at 17:00. 

For further information, please see the advert here: https://www.iwm.org.uk/sites/default/files/files/2026-03/Relics_CDP_Advert_FINAL.pdf

References:

• Appadurai, A., ed. 1988. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge University Press.
• Boldrick, S. 2020. Iconoclasm and the Museum. Routledge.
• Bounia, A., and A. Witcomb, eds. 2024. The Ethics of Collecting Trauma: The Role of Museums in Collecting and Displaying Contemporary Crises. Taylor & Francis.
• Buchli, V. and G. Lucas. 2002. ‘Between Remembering and Forgetting.’ In Buchli, V. and G. Lucas, Archaeologies of the Contemporary Past, 91-95, Routledge.
• Clark, L.B. 2013. ‘Mnemonic Objects: Forensic and Rhetorical Practices in Memorial Culture’. In Silberman, M. and F. Vatan, eds, Memory and Postwar Memorials: Confronting the Violence of the Past, 155-173, Palgrave Macmillan US.
• Cornish, P. 2004. ‘“Sacred Relics”: Objects in the Imperial War Museum 1917–39’. In Saunders, N. J., Matters of Conflict: Material Culture, Memory and the First World War, 35-50, Routledge.
• Dudley, S. H. 2010. ‘Museum Materialities: Objects, Sense and Feeling’. In Dudley, S., ed., Museum Materialities: Objects, Engagements, Interpretations, 1-19, Routledge.
• Huyssen, A. 2016. ‘Memory Things and Their Temporality.’ Memory Studies, 9(1), pp.107-110.
• Munroe, L. 2017. ‘Constructing Affective Narratives in Transatlantic Slavery Museums in the UK.’ In Tolia-Kelly, D. P., E. Waterton, and S. Watson, eds, Heritage, Affect and Emotion, pp. 114-132, Routledge, 2016.
• Reeves, A. and C. Heath-Kelly. 2020. ‘Curating Conflict: Political Violence in Museums, Memorials, and Exhibitions.’ Critical Military Studies, 6(3-4), 243-253. 
• Smith, L., M. Wetherell, and G. Campbell, eds. 2018. Emotion, Affective Practices, and the Past in the Present. Routledge.
• Stewart, S. 2020. The Ruins Lesson: Meaning and Material in Western Culture. University of Chicago Press.
• Varutti, M. 2023. ‘The Affective Turn in Museums and the Rise of Affective Curatorship.’ Museum Management and Curatorship, 38(1): 61–75. doi:10.1080/09647775.2022.2132993.
• Winter, J. 2022. The Cultural History of War in the Twentieth Century and After. Cambridge University Press.
• Zarandona, J.A.G., E. Cunliffe, and M. Saldin, eds. 2023. The Routledge Handbook of Heritage Destruction, London.