Scottish Graduate School for Arts & Humanities

Host organisation: boom saloon

Project title: ICCE – In Case of Climate Emergency

Project description

ICCE – In Case of Climate Emergency is a research-led publication series using paper and ink to document and amplify underrepresented voices at the frontlines of the climate emergency. boom saloon will produce four distinct publications, each centred on a different community whose lived relationship with climate change is rarely heard in mainstream discourse: Scottish food systems and the communities adapting to them; international climate refugees and those facing climate-induced loss and damage; people who are or have been incarcerated and whose experiences of environmental injustice remain largely invisible; and river communities whose waterways have been granted – or are fighting for – legal personhood.

The doctoral researcher will be embedded across all four publication strands, conducting primary research that directly shapes the editorial content, narrative structure and community engagement approach of each publication. This is not archival or background research, the researcher's work will be visible in the final publications and credited accordingly.

Outputs

  • A research report mapping the existing academic and community literature across all four ICCE strands, identifying the key voices, debates and gaps that the publications should address.
  • Primary research documentation for each of the four publication strands – including interview notes, field observations, scenario analysis and editorial recommendations – which will directly inform the content and structure of each publication.
  • A methodology paper reflecting on the use of creative publishing as a research and community engagement tool for climate justice narratives — a contribution to the growing field of environmental humanities practice that will have value both for boom saloon and for the researcher's own academic development.
  • Draft editorial frameworks for each of the four publications, co-developed with boom saloon's editorial team and the four collaborating communities.
  • The researcher will have the opportunity to contribute written content to one or more of the ICCE publications, credited as author, if appropriate to their research focus and in agreement with the community contributors.

In person/remote/hybrid

Hybrid.

boom saloon's studio is based in Edinburgh and the researcher will be welcome to work from there throughout the placement. The majority of research work can be conducted remotely, with in-person studio days for editorial discussions, community events and collaborative development sessions. We anticipate one or two in-person meetings per month as a minimum, with additional in-person time during key editorial stages. For any field research involving community contributors – particularly in relation to the Scottish food systems or river rights strands – in-person participation will be encouraged where possible.

Benefits to the researcher

The placement offers a doctoral researcher in environmental humanities, literary studies, postcolonial studies, cultural geography or a related field an exceptionally rare opportunity: to conduct primary research across four distinct and internationally significant climate justice narratives, working directly with the practitioners and communities at their centre.

The researcher will gain: experience of research-led editorial practice in an independent publishing context; direct relationships with internationally recognised practitioners across food systems, climate communications, carceral photography and environmental law; authorship credit in one or more published, distributed works; experience of community-engaged research methodology in a non-academic setting; and a methodology paper that contributes to their academic portfolio and doctoral development.

boom saloon has an existing track record of supporting early-career practitioners through structured placements. The researcher will be treated as a genuine collaborator – not an assistant – and their intellectual contribution will be visible, credited and lasting.

The ICCE series touches on some of the most significant and rapidly developing areas of humanities research: the rights of nature, climate loss and damage, carceral environmentalism, and food sovereignty. Working across all four simultaneously, with access to primary contributors in each field, would be difficult to replicate in a conventional academic context.

Key relationships

The researcher will work directly with:

  • Rachel Arthur, Founder and Editor, boom saloon – editorial lead and primary supervisor throughout the placement.
  • Carolyn Steel – architect, author of Sitopia and Hungry City, and boom saloon contributor whose work on food systems and climate forms the foundation of the Scottish food strand. Carolyn's concept of sitopia [the food-shaped world] provides the intellectual framework for this publication.
  • Teo Ormond-Skeaping and Lena Dobrowolska – climate communicators, scenario thinkers and boom saloon contributors whose Future Scenarios project, excerpted in issue five of boom saloon and developed across multiple boom saloon newsletters with the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition as guest editors, directly informs the climate refugees strand. Teo's work with the Loss and Damage Youth Coalition and scenario thinking methodology is central to this publication.
  • Sara Bennett – criminal defence attorney turned documentary photographer, whose project Redemption [published by boom saloon and stocked in our bookshop] documents the lives of women released after decades of incarceration in New York State. Sara's work raises urgent questions about environmental injustice, institutional harm and what we do with a redeemed life.
  • Jude Barber – architect and member of boom saloon's community whose work on river rights and the Clyde forms the Scottish anchor of the river rights strand.
  • Más Arte Más Acción – Colombian arts organisation whose Atrato Collaborations project, developed in partnership with the Atrato River community in Afro-Colombia, addresses mercury contamination, illegal gold mining and the legal personhood of the Atrato River. Their Mercury Bodies project, exhibited at Documenta, is one of the most significant recent examples of arts-led environmental rights practice.

The researcher will also engage with boom saloon's wider membership community of 166 members, 34 of whom have direct lived experience of the challenges the ICCE series addresses.

Subject areas

This opportunity would be relevant to the following subject areas:

Creative Writing; Museum and Gallery Studies; Cultural Geography; Cultural History; Economic and Social History; Media and Communication Studies; New Media/Web-Based Studies; Journalism; Publishing; Literature from the Anglophone world; Literary and Cultural Theory.

Person specification

A1. Knowledge Base
  • Essential: Subject Knowledge; Research methods – Practical application; Information Seeking; Information literacy and management.
  • Desirable: Research methods – theoretical knowledge; Languages; Academic literacy and numeracy.
A2. Cognitive Abilities
  • Essential: Synthesising; Evaluating; Critical thinking.
  • Desirable: Analysing; Problem Solving.
A3. Creativity
  • Essential: Inquiring minds; Intellectual insight; Argument construction.
  • Desirable: Innovation; Intellectual risk.
B1. Personal qualities
  • Essential: Enthusiasm; Integrity; Self-reflection; Responsibility.
  • Desirable: Perseverance; Self-confidence.
B2. Self management
  • Essential: Preparation and prioritisation; Responsiveness to change; Time management.
  • Desirable: Commitment to research; Work-life balance.
B3. Professional & career development
  • Essential: Responsiveness to opportunities; Networking; Reputation and esteem.
  • Desirable: Career management; Continuing professional development.
C1. Professional conduct
  • Essential: Ethics, principles and sustainability; IPR and copyright; Respect and confidentiality; Attribution and co-authorship; Appropriate practice.
  • Desirable: Health and Safety; Legal requirements.
C2. Research management
  • Essential: Research Strategy; Project planning and delivery.
  • Desirable: Risk management. 
C3. Finance, funding & resources

  • Desirable: Income and funding generation; Financial management; Infrastructure and resources.

D1. Working with others
  • Essential: Collegiality; Influence and leadership; Team working; Collaboration; Equality and diversity.
  • Desirable: People management; Supervision; Mentoring.
D2. Communication & dissemination
  • Essential: Communication methods; Communication media; Publication.
D3. Engagement & impact
  • Essential: Public Engagement; Policy; Society and culture; Global citizenship.
  • Desirable: Teaching; Enterprise. 

First published: 28 September 2026

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