Rhythms of Place: A project exploring the shared and unique rhythms and identities of places

This project is part of the Leverhulme Trust Aural Diversity Doctoral Research Hub (LAURA).

Closing date for October 2024 start: 21 April 2024

This PhD offers the opportunity to explore the shared and unique rhythms and identities of places, how these develop over time, how they are influenced by sound, and how they are experienced on the ground. 

Places are shaped not just by their location, physicality, or how they look, but also by their sounds. This could be the noise of a factory, railway line, or traffic, the chatter of people on the streets, the roar and chants from the sports arena, or the music that emanates from clubs, bars, or street cultures. The soundscapes which surround places affect the culture of a place and how individuals experience it in various ways, whether moving through it or living in it. These soundscapes are dynamic and fluid, both over time and within short periods of time, and the project offers the opportunity to explore this relationship between temporality, sound and place.   

 This project therefore seeks to explore culture, locality, and the experiences of place, through sound.  

 About the Leverhulme Trust Aural Diversity Doctoral Research Hub (LAURA) 

Aural diversity is a new and highly interdisciplinary field and LAURA, based at the University of Salford and Goldsmiths University of London, is the first PhD programme in the world to focus on it. Aural diversity is based on the simple observation that individual and group differences in hearing, listening and responding to sound are common, yet, outside medicine, when sound is produced, controlled, consumed or discussed a “normal” listener is usually assumed.  

Aural diversity reflects the fact that hearing is a lived and embodied experience for most people, with complexity and fluctuation over time. Aural diversity rejects the normal hearing assumption; instead, it asks how musicians, theatre directors and sound engineers might make performances for an aurally diverse audience, how architects and planners might design buildings and cities for a range of hearing types, and what all our devices – from kettles to cars – might sound like if we allow that everyone hears differently.  

LAURA students will be supervised by a highly diverse range of supervisors drawn from several departments across Salford and Goldsmiths. Most disciplines involved with sound are represented, including acoustics, anthropology, art, architecture, computer science, education, engineering, English literature, music/music technology, occupational science, psychology, sociology and speech. You can find out more about our facilities and the range of topics covered here. 

Who should apply  

You should have a minimum of a First-class undergraduate degree or a 2:1 + Masters in a relevant area. If you do not meet these requirements, but feel you have relevant experience akin to Masters, please contact the team explaining these factors prior to application (see-laura@salford.ac.uk).  Further application guidance can be found here. Note that due to the limited deadline, we are unable to accept international applicants this year. However, we will be recruiting again for entry in October 2025 and 2026 and we will offer some international places then.  

If you are from an under-represented group, then we can offer you additional support during the application process such as a mentor who could offer advice on your draft application.  Enquire about being matched with an independent mentor by emailing see-laura@salford.ac.uk