Postgraduate Ethnographic Writing Workshop 2026

Description:

Postgraduate Ethnographic Writing Workshop 2026

 

Writing Across Boundaries Project is an intensive, two-day, residential workshop + one day optional writing retreat for social science PhD students in their third year. The aims of the workshop are to explore analytical and practical approaches to ethnographic writing and offers participants an opportunity to reflect on the writing process itself as a form of social science thinking. The final day (optional) writing retreat enables focused and supported writing and an opportunity to put the approaches you’ve learned into action. 

The next Writing Across Boundaries workshop will take place on 25 – 27 March 2026 at Durham University (Holgate Conference Room, Grey College). 

 

Eligible Participants

The workshop is for PhD students in the social sciences in their third year of study, who:

• Are interested in ethnographic writing as a particular way of conveying a contextual understanding of lived reality by drawing on a range of specific methods including, for instance, participant observation, semi-structured interviews, archival research, visual analysis, and life-histories;
• Are at the point of translating this data into written chapters for their doctoral thesis; 
• Have completed their fieldwork and have data that they have begun to work through.

 

Programme

The provisional programme for the workshop will be available soon and will include input from a number of anthropologists from Newcastle University and Durham University. 

 

How to Apply

There are only 30 places available on our 2026 workshop. If you are interested in attending please complete the online registration form: https://webapp.inkpath.co.uk/redirect/eyJuYW1lIjoiQWN0aXZpdHlEZXRhaWxQYWdlIiwicGFyYW1zIjp7ImlkIjoxMjY3NDR9fQ==

 by 5pm on 13^th March 2026. Candidates will then be contacted by the Project Team as to whether they have been selected to join the workshop.

 

Applications received after the deadline will not be accepted.

 

Costs

The workshop registration is free for those from our regional and Northern Irish universities (Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Teesside, Sunderland, Queens and Ulster). For those from outside the Northern Ireland and North East Doctoral Training Partnership, we are charging £60. This includes lunch on both days and an evening meal in a local restaurant on the 25^th March.

 

If you require accommodation you will need to book this and pay directly yourself. There are a number of hotels available to suit most budgets in and around the city.

 

Unfortunately, we are not able to assist with accommodation or travel costs for participants; NINEDTP students have access to the usual funds for claiming travel and accommodation if needed. 

 

Feedback from last year

'I felt stuck in my writing process but this workshop gave me some structures to craft the writing. It was amazing to meet everyone and talk here as it made me feel I am not alone in this PhD situation.’

 

'A set of inspiring and useful sessions that felt encouraging and opening’

 

‘Space to write and be nurtured with good food, tea and conversation’

 

Further Information

Please contact Michael Crawley, michael.p.crawley@durham.ac.uk or Skyler Hawkins, skyler.hawkins@newcastle.ac.uk if you require any further information about the Writing Across Boundaries workshop.

Cost:

The workshop registration is free for those from our regional and Northern Irish universities (Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Teesside, Sunderland, Queens and Ulster). For those from outside the Northern Ireland and North East Doctoral Training Partnership, we are charging £60.

Website and registration:

Register for this course

Region:

North East

Keywords:

Data Quality and Data Management , Narrative Methods, Autoethnography, Hypermedia ethnography

Related publications and presentations from our eprints archive:

Data Quality and Data Management
Narrative Methods
Autoethnography
Hypermedia ethnography

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