Grant Supports International Collaborations
October 1, 2024 | Kristen Chavez
As part of the Internationalization pillar of the Institute’s strategic plan, the IAH launched the Summer International Collaborative Research Grant in 2023 to support faculty at the associate professor rank. Musicologist Andrea Bohlman and geographer Javier Arce-Nazario received the inaugural awards.
For faculty in the arts, humanities, and qualitative social sciences, the SICR grant provides $20,000 to use for up to five years. With the grant’s timeframe and funds, faculty have time and resources to conduct research abroad and develop international partnerships.
Having an international profile has become increasingly important for career advancement to faculty. Director Patricia Parker identified internationalization as a key initiative to enhance the Institute’s offerings for faculty and the flagship fellowship program.
“Some of the most impactful research begins with faculty collaborating with other experts at universities, museums, art galleries, community organizations, and other entities,” said Parker. “Supporting faculty collaborative research opportunities abroad extends that impact globally and enriches teaching and learning at UNC.”
As part of the grant, Bohlman conducted research that grew out of her first book and also helped inspire her next one, currently titled “Magnetic Fields: Tape Recording and the Sounding of Consent.” The SICR grant allowed Bohlman to spend three weeks in Germany and Poland, traveling to Berlin, Warsaw, and Wrocław. In addition to conducting research in sound recording archives and hosting a workshop on graduate student research at the University of Wrocław, she connected with key collaborators, which included cultural historians, musicologists and experts in media and visual arts.
Arce-Nazario’s project, “Cartographies of the Global South,” collaborated with scholars at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Ecuador, Amazonian Indigenous communities, and other stakeholders. The interdisciplinary project works to create new maps that contextualize the area from the perspective of the local Indigenous community, informed by oral histories and more.
The summer of 2023 was just the start for both Bohlman and Arce-Nazario. Over the next few years, they have additional plans to travel and further build their collaborations.
Bohlman appreciated the timeframe for the grant, which provides access to the funds for up to five years. “Complicated ideas take time to develop. They take hard conversations. They take careful and fastidious work through materials, texts, and the writing process itself is slow,” she said in a recent IAH podcast.
“It indicates to me an investment on the part of the university and in the strength of intellectual work in the arts and humanities, allowing space for ideas.”
By Kristen Chavez
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