ELPHINSTONE PHD SCHOLARSHIP GRANTS, UNIVERSITY OF ABERDEEN To commemorate the 500th anniversary of its founder, Bishop Elphinstone, the University of Aberdeen announces its PhD scholarship programme that covers the payment of tuition fees at the appropriate rate per annum for three years, full time study from October 2015. This opportunity is offered to high-achieving students to begin a PhD programme. Students can be resident in Scotland/EU, rest of UK, and international. The successful candidate will have a good (1st Class, 2:1 or equivalent) MSc or undergraduate degree in Anthropology, Geography, History, or Social Sciences. Dr. Tanya Argounova-Low and Dr. Arnar Arnason are looking for prospective students interested in research related to mobility, movement, and road themes in anthropology, as described below. 1.       Roads and Change: The Aberdeen Western Peripheral RouteRoads are ubiquitous elements of our lives. Businesses and lives of ordinary people depend on them. This unique project proposes to examine the road in the making. The Aberdeen Western Peripheral Route (AWPR) is a much touted project that is deemed to have significant economic impact on the North East of Scotland in general and the city of Aberdeen in particular. The project was first proposed in 1952 and after long legal delays, the project took off in 2014.The main focus of this project will be the process of the 'road becoming', from an idea to a project, and to its construction. The project will consider various economic, political and environmental effects of the project, but above all it will assess how the road will engage and affect the nearby communities. This project will correlate different aspects of outcomes and will focus on the transformative effects of the road building and use. This PhD project will contribute to the study of roads and mobility in anthropology. 2.       Road BiographiesRoads gather histories. Many modern roads are laid on top of old paths and routes. Thus roads have multiple layers of significance, past and present, which cumulatively constitute the biography or life-history of a road. This project will study roads that have accumulated histories over a period of time. These might be ancient military roads or droving paths that were used to move cattle from the Highland pastures down to markets in the south. This project will study the roads from this life-history perspective, following different threads of encounters, entanglements, combinations and departures. This vantage point will help to bring the life of people and that of the road together and will generate a broader analysis and understanding of what roads are. This approach will highlight the historical perspective and concurrently reveal the complexity of economic, political and social engagements and interactions between people and roads. 3.       Frozen: Temporality and Permanency of Roads in SiberiaThis project will be based in Siberia and will focus on the temporality and permanency of roads in this region. In particular the project will investigate how climate, frost, winter conditions and permafrost affect and influence the stability, functioning and operation of the roads and mobility in the area. The project will focus on the ice roads that are used by truck drivers to deliver supplies to the remote Arctic villages in the short winter season.Deadline for applications: 30 April 2015. For further information please visit http://www.abdn.ac.uk/cass/graduate/anthropology-381.phpCandidates should simultaneously register their desire to be considered by emailing the Graduate School Administrator, Ann Marie Johnston, at [email protected] Marie Johnston 
Administrator 
Graduate School 
The College of Arts and Social Sciences 
University of Aberdeen 
Powis Gate 
College Bounds 
Aberdeen 
AB24 3UG 

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