PhD in Heritage and Tourism: Witch Hunts as a Gendered Traumascape
Witches continue to capture the imagination. But how does the history of witch persecutions take shape today in heritage and tourism? And how do different actors – from heritage institutions to local communities – interpret and use this history?
For a four-year PhD project we are looking for a doctoral candidate who will investigate these questions through the case of early modern witch persecutions in the Netherlands. The project is part of the larger research programme Traumascapes, which explores how societies engage with difficult or traumatic histories in landscapes, heritage practices and tourism.
Within this programme, the PhD project focuses on how memories of witch persecutions circulate today in heritage practices and tourism contexts, such as museums, walking routes, local storytelling initiatives, digital platforms and contemporary witch-identifying or pagan communities. The project approaches these contemporary engagements with the past as a gendered traumascape, paying particular attention to the role of gender, heritage practices and processes of value formation.
In addition to an in-depth study of the Dutch case, the project will develop thematic comparisons with other case studies within the Traumascapes programme. The research therefore contributes not only to new insights into the cultural afterlives of witch persecutions, but also to the development of a broader analytical framework for studying gendered traumascapes in heritage and tourism contexts.