Successful PGR students
Postgraduate Research Student Successes
We are privileged to have been part of the academic successes of a number of our students. You can read more about them via the dropdown menu below, some of which have links to their online thesis.
Dr Fleur Ward
Dr Fleur Ward
Mapping of digital connectivity and island governance: a comparative study of the Scottish archipelagos and Irish islands.
This PhD was funded by the European Social Fund and Scottish Funding Council as part of Developing Scotland’s Workforce in the Scotland 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Fund Programme.
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) plays a pivotal role in how Scottish Island Councils govern community and business development. It is vital that Scottish Island Councils fully utilise, integrate and govern ICT in their communities as it drives growth, engagement, sustainability and island proofing. Through a comparative approach this research will advance current island governance theory, and provide research based findings on the nature of ICT use in island communities worldwide.
This project assess the impact of ICT on island communities and examine its use in various sectors including tourism, food and drink, and the creative industries. From these findings, Scottish Island Councils will be provided with strategic information concerning how to use and develop their own ICT systems which could lead to increased efficiency, improved community engagement and economic empowerment within their jurisdictions.
Fleur is based in Orkney. She was supervised by Dr Andrew Jennings.
Links
Dr Annie Thuesen
Dr Annie Thuesen
The sustainability of cultural tourism and its effects on communities: The case of Orkney
The project looked at the sustainability of cultural heritage tourism in Orkney, with a particular focus on opening access to underutilised Norse and Viking sites with the intention of abating footfall erosion at more well-known heritage sites.
This project was funded by the European Social Fund and Scottish Funding Council as part of Developing Scotland’s Workforce in the Scotland 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Fund Programme.
Annie ws supervised by Prof Alexandra Sanmark, Institute for Northern Studies in Orkney, University of the Highlands and Islands, Dr Colleen Batey, Department of Archaeology, University of Glasgow and Dr Piotr Niewiadomski, Department of Geography & Environment, University of Aberdeen
Links
Dr Rebecca Ford
Dr Rebecca Ford
Words and Waves: a dialogical approach to discourse, community, and marine renewables in Orkney
In my research I explored the role of narrative in the formation and shaping of discourse communities, the idea of community as a creative, dialogical process, and the importance of place in meaning making. In 2014 I worked as a Research Assistant for the Alien Energy project at the IT University Copenhagen, and the report on my fieldwork at the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) in Orkney is available on the Alien Energy (below).
I am a member of the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) Doctoral Researcher Committee, and a Postgraduate Representative on the Executive Committee of the Association for the Study of Literature and Environment, UK and Ireland (ASLE-UKI). I am on the board of directors for the George Mackay Brown Fellowship.
Rebecca is based in Orkney and she was supervised by Prof Donna Heddle.
Links
Dr Andrea Freund
Dr Andrea Freund
Runic writing in the Viking diaspora: expression of a Norse identity?
- An Applied Research Collaborative Studentship (ARCS) project
- Partners: University of the Highlands and Islands, Institute for Northern Studies, Orkney Museums and Heritage (Orkney Islands Council), Centre for Scandinavian Studies, University of Aberdeen
This project proposed a comparative study of the corpus of runic inscriptions from the entire Scandinavian diaspora in the North Atlantic region, and looks at runic literacy as a means of expressing identity.
Editions and evaluations of the runic corpus tend to focus on certain regions (eg Lisbeth Imer on the use of runes in Greenland) and seldom examine connections throughout the Scandinavian diaspora in-depth. By interpreting runic inscriptions as witness of an extended network of literacy across the North Atlantic, Andrea seeks to establish connections and larger patterns of common traits, and examine cultural and linguistic exchange with other cultures inhabiting the region.
The project has a natural place within the growing field of research on the Viking diaspora, also taking into account recent work on Gaelic influence on Viking culture, language and place-names as well as DNA studies and key archaeological features. This makes it possible to view the Viking settlement of the North Atlantic Isles from a new perspective which has not been fully explored so far and will shed light on the growing area of Viking diaspora research from a new angle.
The key research question for the project is: do runic inscriptions in the diaspora, individually and as a corpus, show any unique characteristics, compared to inscriptions from mainland Scandinavia, which date from the corresponding periods, i.e. Viking Age and Medieval period? Can the runic inscriptions be viewed as expressions of a unique and new Norse diaspora identity?
Andrea is based in Germany and she was supervised by Prof Alex Sanmark, Prof Stefan Brink and Gail Drinkall.
Links
Dr Anne Artymiuk
Dr Anne Artymiuk
Today’s No Ground to Stand Upon: a Study of the Life and Poetry of George Campbell Hay
Anne researched the 20th century Scottish poet George Campbell Hay. Recognised by his contemporaries, including Hugh MacDiarmid and Sorley MacLean, as a leading poet of his generation, Hay was largely lost to sight after World War Two due to recurring bouts of severe mental disturbance which led to many years of hospitalisation.
Taking inspiration from Kay Redfield Jamieson, a leading expert on the inter-relationship of mental illness and artistic creativity, Anne’s research focused on the space where biography, poetry and psychology meet, and her work has illustrated the way in which each of these separate aspects of the poet illuminate the others.
Anne was recently responsible (2017) for the addition of George Campbell Hay to The Makar’s Court Memorial at the Writer’s Museum in Edinburgh.
Anne is based in Orkney and was supervised by Prof Donna Heddle
Links
Dr Gillian Beattie-Smith
Dr Gillian Beattie-Smith
Romantic Subjectivity: the creation and performance of women’s identity in nineteenth century travel literature about Scotland
Women’s identities are created and performed relational to the contexts in which they live and by which they are bound. Identities are performed within and against those contexts. Romantic subjectivity: women’s identity in their nineteenth-century travel writing about Scotland, is concerned with the location of women and their creation and construction of relational identity in their personal narratives of the nineteenth century.
The texts taken for study are travel journals, memoires, and diaries, each of which narrates times and journeys in Scotland. The subjects of study are Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt, Dorothy Wordsworth, and Elizabeth Grant. The texts considered are Journal of My Trip to Scotland, 1803 and Journal of my second tour in Scotland, 1822, written by Dorothy Wordsworth; and Memoirs of a Highland Lady, written by Elizabeth Grant about her life before 1830.
The focus of study is Romantic subjectivity in the texts of the three women writers. Women’s relational performatitivy to the prevailing social and cultural norms is examined and considered in the context of women as authors, women’s travel writing, and ideologies of women’s place in the nineteenth century.
- She is based in Edinburgh
- Supervised by Prof Donna Heddle
| Title | Romantic subjectivity : women's identity in their nineteenth-century travel writing about Scotland |
|---|---|
| Author | Beattie-Smith, Gillian L. |
| Awarding Body | University of Aberdeen and University of the Highlands and Islands |
| Current Institution | University of Aberdeen |
| Date of Award | 2017 |
http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.715482
Links
Dr Marc Chivers
Dr Marc Chivers
The Traditional Shetland Boat
The Shetland boat is central to the economic and cultural development of the Shetland Isles. These boats were used for fishing and transportation and their ancestry can be traced back to the arrival of the first Norwegian Viking settlers in about 780 AD. The fact that the design of these boats changed little over the Centuries is testament to their seaworthiness and practicality of use. A cooling in climate in the fifteenth century led to fish stocks moving offshore and resulted in the development of the Far Haaf fishery. This deep-water fishing, right on the edge of the continental shelf, required larger boats and so the Sixern was born.
The expansion of the herring fishing in the 1880’s lead Shetland fishermen away from the relatively small open boats of the Sixern and Fourern and Instead they adopted the larger, partly decked, and at the time, more economically viable Scottish Fifies and Zulus. Although no longer commercially viable the Shetland model of boat is indelibly marked in the fishing folk culture of Shetland. His research will investigate the incorporation of the Shetland model of boat into the material folk culture of the Shetland people.
- Marc Chivers is based in Shetland
- Supervised by Dr Andrew Jennings
Title: Shetland vernacular boats, 1500-2000
Author: Chivers, Marc Leonard
Awarding Body: University of Aberdeen and University of the Highlands and Islands
Current Institution: University of Aberdeen
Date of Award: 2017
http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.725379
Links
Dr Jill de Fresnes
Dr Jill de Fresnes
Image and Identity: The lives of the herring girls 1900-1950
The fishing industry has always had an important part to play in both the economy and the social history of both the UK and of Scotland. Many communities around the coasts over the centuries used fish as a vital part of a subsistence lifestyle. It was not until the late c18th and throughout the c19th before herring became of increasing importance as a valuable export from UK shores to Russia, to Germany, America and all over the world. Thousands of fishermen and other fish workers depended for their livelihoods on the migrating shoals of herring, which travelled annually around the coast.
Amongst these workers were the herring girls – literally thousands of women who travelled across the country and down the coastline. They went out to the Northern Isles, down the east coast of Scotland and into the main fishing ports of England, following the boats which were following the shoals of herring as they migrated around the UK coastline.
Jill’s thesis detailed their working and resting lives and created a new kind of visual sociology methodology to do so.
Dr Fresnes was a Research Fellow after graduating at the UHI Centre for History. She now works as Skills for the Future Project Manager at the Royal Commission for Ancient and Historic Monuments of Scotland in Edinburgh.
- Supervised by Prof Heddle and graduated in 2010
| Title | Image and identity : The lives of the Scots herring Girls 1900-1950 |
|---|---|
| Author | Jill de Fresnes |
| Awarding Body: | The Open University |
| Current Institution: | Open University |
| Date of Award | 2010 |
| Availability of Full Text | Full text unavailable from EThOS. Restricted access. Please contact the current institution’s library for further details. |
http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.527444
Links
Dr Shane McLeod
Dr Shane McLeod
Migration and Acculturation: the impact of the Norse on Eastern England, c865-900
The conquest and settlement of lands in eastern England by Scandinavians represents an extreme migratory episode. The cultural interaction involved one group forcing themselves upon another from a position of military and political power. Despite this seemingly dominant position, by 900 CE the immigrants appear to have largely adopted the culture of the Anglo-Saxons whom they had recently defeated. Informed by migration theory, this work proposes that a major factor in this assimilation was the emigration point of the Scandinavians and the cultural experiences which they brought with them.
Although some of the Scandinavians may have emigrated directly from Scandinavia most of the first generation of settlers apparently commenced their journey in either Ireland or northern Francia. Consequently, it is the culture of Scandinavians in these regions that need to be assessed in searching for the cultural impact of Scandinavians upon eastern England. This may help to explain how the immigrants adapted to aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture, such as the issuing of coinage and at least public displays of Christianity, relatively quickly. The geographic origins of the Scandinavians also explain some of the innovations introduced by the migrants, including the use of client kings and the creation of ‘buffer’ states.
Dr MacLeod has lectured at the University of West Australia. He is now a Post-doctoral Research Fellow in the University of Stirling, Department of History. His study has recently been published as The Beginning of Scandinavian Settlement in England. The Viking ‘Great Army’ and Early Settlers, c865-900.
- Supervised by Prof Alex Sanmark and graduated in 2011
Links
Dr Jane Blair MacMorran
Dr Jane Blair MacMorran
The Musical Legacy of Ron Gonnella, Scottish Fiddler 1930-1994
Jane’s thesis determined the musical legacy of Scottish fiddler Ron Gonnella—in particular, the popularization of jigs and the re-invigoration of eighteenth and nineteenth-century fiddle repertoire. Born in Dundee in 1930, Gonnella was well known through his BBC Scotland performances, his extensive discography of Scots fiddle and dance band recordings, his role as competition adjudicator, international performer and collaborator with the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society and many of its branches. In spite of Gonnella’s popularity and extensive body of work, he has been largely neglected in the formal literature, evidenced by the fact that he is included in the work of only four authors (Emmerson 1972, Donaldson 1986, Alburger 1996, Duesenberry 2000). This thesis, therefore, contributed hitherto uncollected information on Gonnella’s life and extensive body of work; and represents an original contribution to the formal literature relating to the Scottish fiddling tradition.
- She is based in Tennessee, USA
- She was supervised by Prof Donna Heddle
Links
Dr Silke Reeploeg
Dr Silke Reeploeg
Nordic Regions of Culture: Modern Intercultural links between Shetland and Norway
This thesis aims to address the central research question of how Nordic regions of culture and memory are created and maintained over time within Northern Europe. The history and culture of Scotland has been shaped by its relationships with other cultures across the North Atlantic and the North Sea, with North America, Ireland, Continental Europe and Scandinavia, but in particular with Norway.
The research focuses on understanding the continuing intercultural connections between Norway and Scotland after 1707 by examining national and regional historiographical contexts alongside cultural narratives (both national, sub- and transnational), and relating them to the wider, sometimes conflicting, but also converging, regionalisation or ‘identity management’ dynamics of European regions and states in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In this, the thesis examines the transnational 'cultural region' connecting Scotland and Norway well beyond the Viking period.
Using case studies from the Shetland Islands and Western Norway, the thesis argues for the existence of an intercultural history that connects the two countries over a much longer period of time as has previously been thought, but in particular the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. By showing how both hidden and obvious transnational “regions of culture” can be documented, the thesis critically explores both direct structural links, such as coastal trade, but also socio-cultural activities such as boatbuilding traditions, and relates them to political and ideological cultural phenomena such as national and regional historiographies.
- Supervised by Prof Donna Heddle
Links
- https://pure.uhi.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/silke-reeploeg(7337537d-80f0-481f-bcac-f50451e8f6e4)/cv.html?id=1877692
- http://karlstad.academia.edu/SilkeReeploeg
- https://uk.linkedin.com/in/silke-reeploeg-8b654020
- https://twitter.com/SilkeReeploeg?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor
| Title | Between Scotland and Norway : connected cultures and intercultural encounters 1700-present |
|---|---|
| Author | Reeploeg, Silke |
| Awarding Body | University of Aberdeen |
| Current Institution | University of Aberdeen |
| Date of Award | 2017 |
http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.715466
Dr Tom Rendall
Dr Tom Rendall
The effects of inmigration on Orkney dialect
Tom Rendall was born on the island of Sanday (1951) at a small farm called The Meadow. He was educated at Sanday Junior High and left school age 15 with no qualifications. The local headmaster – John D Mackay – was keen to assist students who wanted to pursue some O levels and Highers. Tom passed 5 O levels and Higher English.
In 1975 Tom commenced his studies with the Open University and studied while working on the farm and also acting as Company Secretary of the Isle of Sanday Knitters. He graduated with a BA in 1983 – and added Honours by 1985.
In 1990, Tom married and moved to Kirkwall. He worked as a Tourist Information Centre Manager with Orkney Tourist Board from 1992 – 2001. During this time he studied for his second degree with the Open University – a BSc. His subjects have been mostly social science based.
From 2002-2010 Tom worked as a part-time lecturer at Orkney College – teaching tourism courses and also running Orcadian Studies classes. Since leaving the College Tom has worked at the Kirkwall Grammar School in the Curriculum Support Department. He has also worked at the Orkney Museum and the Tomb of the Eagles.
Over the past 8 years Tom has carried out research in attitudes towards the use of dialect in Orkney culminating in the award of a Doctor of Philosophy. He has also worked on two small scale dialect projects and has published a report on one of those studies: Voices aroond the Flow He graduated at the St Magnus Cathedral on the 27th September 2013 and described this as “ one of the best days of my life”.
- Dr Rendall was supervised by Professor Donna Heddle
Links
Dr Tudor Skinner
Dr Tudor Skinner
Impact and change: The dynamics of political assembly in the Danelaw AD400-1100
This project seeks to characterise the dynamic relations between meeting places and their associated administrative divisions in the early medieval northeast. The study area focuses upon the northern extent of what was the Danelaw, a Scandinavian territory in the region formerly occupied by the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria. This is targeted here through the historic counties of Yorkshire, Durham and Northumberland, extending northwards to the Lothians of southeastern Scotland. This investigation forms one of the components of The Assembly Project - Meeting Places in Northern Europe, AD400-1500, and thus will ultimately seek to set the analysis within the ambit of wider developments in northwestern Europe as a whole.
The early medieval northeast witnessed drastic shifts in its political makeup at the close of the Roman era. From post-Roman polities and Anglian kingdoms through to the Scandinavian settlement and the changes wrought by the Norman Conquest, the region has been redefined and reframed on numerous occasions. While the primary objective of the present project is to analyse those developments and practices associated with the Danelaw, this cannot be achieved without detailed recourse to and analysis of the long term political development of the region, and likewise of its subsequent history.
This draws upon numerous strands of evidence in order to map and analyse the shifting landscape, combining established emphases upon documentary sources and place-names with an ever growing corpus of archaeological data. The stress is twofold, developing a dynamic picture in place of static snapshots while bringing the archaeology, thus far the junior partner of assembly-studies, to the forefront. While the paucity of documentary evidence for the northeast necessitates a stronger material component, this differential focus offers exciting new opportunities to contextualise assembly sites within wider archaeological landscapes, in relation to parallel studies into settlement, burial, land-use and material culture - in effect to move attention towards landscapes, rather than merely sites, of political assembly.
- Tudor Skinner is based in Durham
- Supervised by Dr Alex Sanmark, jointly with staff at Durham
| Title | Impact and change : assembly practices in the Northern Danelaw |
|---|---|
| Author | Skinner, Alexis Tudor |
| Awarding Body | Durham University |
| Current Institution | Durham University |
| Date of Award | 2014 |
http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=1&uin=uk.bl.ethos.620810
Links
Dr Angela Watt
Dr Angela Watt
The Implications of Cultural Interchange in Scalloway, Shetland, with reference to a perceived Nordic-based Heritage
Shetland’s geographical location has long been considered remote or isolated from a centralised Scottish perspective. However, as an island group situated between the neighbouring landmasses of Scotland and Norway, Shetland is directly situated on the maritime highway of the North Atlantic Rim. The mobilising quality of the maritime highway created a path of entry into the islands, allowing the development of locational narratives, but has also resulted in the loss of some of these narratives.
This investigation addresses the dynamics of cultural interchange by formulating a theoretical model of the exchange of ‘cultural products’; with particular regard for practices of recording and displaying visual narratives. The ancient capital of Shetland, Scalloway, provides the background for a microcosmic account of Shetland’s wider history and cultural composition and forms the main focus of the thesis. Within this setting the process of cultural interchange can be seen to have been formative in the development of island identity; particularly in traditional practices, occupational forms, dialect, place-names and cultural expressions.
The historical account of Scalloway provides material culture evidence for human occupation reaching back to the Bronze Age. Successive ‘layers’ in the archaeological record and officially recorded histories indicate distinct periods pertinent in the development of a local identity; Iron Age, Norse Era, Stewart Earldom and World War Two. Collectively, these periods represent a consecutive process of ‘imprinting’ characteristics upon the local population; including geographical positioning, dialect, political control and shared narrative histories with Norway during the Second World War. However, it can be seen that there is an over-determination of the Norse element of island identity, which finds a greater degree of replication in visual accounts. It is argued in this investigation that this over-determination is a deliberate cultural construct of island identity that is maintained in opposition to Scottish control.
- She is based in Shetland
- She was supervised by Professor Donna Heddle and graduated in 2013
| Title | The implications of cultural interchange in Scalloway, Shetland, with reference to a perceived Nordic heritage |
|---|---|
| Author | Watt, Angela |
| Awarding Body | University of Aberdeen |
| Current Institution | University of Aberdeen |
| Date of Award | 2012 |
http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?did=7&uin=uk.bl.ethos.577592
Dr Lydia Crow
Dr Lydia Crow
Digital Ethnography and a Virtual Orkney: The Role of Folklore in Creating an Online Orkney Place
With the rise of social media networks in recent years, the internet has become the largest research site available, offering the researcher a lens through which to examine contemporary expressions of identity relating to the self, as well as to perceived communities and groups.
This research analysed the way in which Orcadian folklore is referenced in blogging and across various social media networks, and considered its relationship to identities associated with Orkney today.
Lydia is interested in online and offline ethnographic research approaches, qualitative methods used to analyse online data, and the development of folklore as a field of study in the twenty-first century, with a specific interest in digital folklore.
Lydia is currently based in Edinburgh and Inverness, and was supervised by Dr Andrew Jennings
Links
- Academia: https://uhi.academia.edu/LydiaCrow
- Website: http://lydiacrow.com/research/
Andrew Parkinson
Andrew Parkinson
Andrew Parkinson’s research focused on the engagement of three artistic figures with Rackwick in Hoy: Poet George Mackay Brown, painter Sylvia Wishart, and composer Peter Maxwell Davies.
Spencer Rosie
Spencer Rosie
Spencer Rosie’s thesis analysed the royal charters of Kirkwall in detail, considering their influence on life in the burgh during its earliest centuries within the Scottish kingdom.
John Peach
John Peach
Did the arrival of pagans from the Viking Diaspora have an influence on the religious practice of early medieval Anglo-Saxon Christians?
I am examining the possibility that the settled Viking diaspora in Anglo-Saxon society had an impact on the religious behaviour of the native population. The object of the project is to identify if a relatively small arrival of settlers can influence religious practise at a local level albeit without retaining any longer-term doctrinal impact.
The period under examination would be from 793 to the Norman Conquest of 1066 and would focus on modern day England, namely the "Danelaw" of the time.
There are two complicating factors in this study. The first is the upheaval caused by the arrival of the Norman Christians in the post 1066 period, more significant however is the impact of the post Henry VIII reformation and the subsequent destruction of aspects of religious life that will add to the challenge of answering the question.
I am examining religious behaviour of the Anglo-Saxon Christians, to ascertain if there was a trajectory of retained pagan behaviour or customs within society that were being eradicated or preached against, for example well or spring worship, that survived longer as a result of the pagan arrivals.
To do this, I place the Christianity of post 793CE in the context of the development of Christianity from the Roman withdrawal of c407CE, the invasion of Germanic tribes and the beginning of the Augustine mission of 597CE with the incremental conversion of the Anglo-Saxons and the top-down process led by kings and rulers. The arrival of the “Great Army” in c865 is perhaps the starting point for the influence and cross fertilisation (if there were any) of the Norse pagans and the Anglo-Saxon Christians.
Within this context I am studying the religious practises that were “imported” by the Norse settlers in terms of for example, their continued pagan practise as seen by law makers and their impact in the local community with hogback monuments or Norse motifs added to Christian iconography.
The impact of a minority on the religious behaviour of a larger community is pertinent in modern society where the arrival of asylum seekers and refugees can present both challenges and opportunities to the established religious congregation. Whilst incomers are expected to conform to the norms of wider society, their desires to maintain their own traditions can be seen as a rejection of the host society and the impact, if any, on that society may be ignored.
John is a part time researcher and full-time health service manager based in Nottingham. He completed is M.Litt. in Viking Studies in 2019.
He is supervised by Professor Alexandra Sanmark