Cambridge PhD Students Awarded Korean Heritage Research Grants

Current Archaeology PhD students Geonyoung Kim, Oliver Moxham and Hyunjae Kim have recently been awarded with Korean Heritage Research Grants for Early-Career Scholars: Unveiling Shared Pasts, Shaping Common Futures.

The 2025 Korean Heritage Research Grants for Early-Career Scholars offer a unique funding opportunity designed to promote innovative and collaborative research in the field of transnational heritage studies. The grants programme, organized by the Korean National Commission for UNESCO and funded by the Korea Heritage Service, invites early-career scholars to conduct small-scale research projects, addressing critical global challenges through the lens of Korean heritage.

Geonyoung Kim was awarded the grant for her project Heritage beyond Borders: Inclusive Approaches to Heritage Governance and Equity – the Case of Korean Collections outside of Korea.

This project explores South Korea’s approach to managing Korean objects in overseas museums as an alternative practice to administer material culture entangled with Europe’s colonial past. By evaluating collaborative practices between South Korean institutions and Western museums, this project aims to contribute to discussions on decolonising museum practices and facilitating heritage equity and diversity.

Geonyoung will lead the team as the Principal Investigator with two colleagues from Cambridge and SOAS. Her role includes project management, interviewing heritage and museum practitioners in South Korea and the UK, and analysing heritage narratives on Korean collections in four museums in the UK with co-researchers.

Geonyoung Kim at the exhibition she curated at Haddon Library (Drawing to heal), March 2025 | Credit: Geonyoung Kim

Korean collection at Victoria and Albert Museum, May 2021 | Credit: Geonyoung Kim

Oliver Moxham and Hyunjae Kim | Credit: Moxham and Kim respectively

Women's Active Museum of War and Peace, Tokyo, Japan – A museum dedicated to documenting and exhibiting the experiences of female victims during the war under Japanese imperialism | Credit Hyunjae Kim

Ami-dong Biseok Village, Busan, South Korea – Originally a Japanese cemetery, this site has been transformed into a residential area | Credit: Hyunjae Kim

Oliver Moxham and Hyunjae Kim were awarded the grant for their project Exploring the Reconciliatory Role of Colonial Heritage and Monuments: Focusing on Korea-Japan Grassroots Memories of Colonialism.

Oliver will be joining Cambridge Heritage Research Centre colleague Hyunjae Kim, the Principal Investigator, as co-researcher in examining how colonial heritage and monuments in South Korea and Japan are remembered, preserved, and contested, with a focus on grassroots and individual-led reconciliatory efforts. The project will see them combine their PhD research methodologies to elevate individual interpretation by members of the public at heritage sites in Korea and Japan with ties to the Japanese Empire (1868-1946).

Oliver will be doing online ethnography of Google Maps reviews at six sites, 3 in Japan and 3 in South Korea, to see what dissonant and consonant themes appear between Japanese and Korean reviewers. Focussing on the consonant, he hopes to highlight elements of international colonial memory which foster mutual understanding and empathy, rather than the often-reported division and hostility. Hyunjae and Oliver will then survey and interview heritage visitors and managers for more in-depth interpretations over 4 weeks of fieldwork. Together they will explore heritage sites and their online counterparts as a medium for intercultural dialogue which can inform reconciliation efforts in a region marked by contested memories of war and empire.

Published 27 May 2025

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