Imogen Simpson-Mowday
Research Student
2003 M.A. in Advanced Studies of The Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas , Sainsbury Research Unit
Phd Thesis
Thesis title (provisional) "Places of Pilgrimage: Perceptions of Archaeological Sites and Museums in Ancash, Peru".
Supervisor: Dr George Lau and Secondary Supervisor Dr Aristoteles Barcelos-Neto.
Imogen completed her MA from the SRU, in the Advanced Studies of The Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas in 2003, focusing on representations of women in Moche ceramics from the Moche culture of northern coastal Peru for her dissertation. Her first degree was a BSc in Archaeology from Cardiff University of Wales where she developed her interests in altered landscapes, altered states of being, the relationships between 'indigenous' people and heritage, and archaeological theory in particular.
She has long desired to return to the SRU and is very glad to have been given the opportunity to conduct Doctoral research in the Andes.
Imogen assisted the Director of the Pitt Rivers Museum with the restoration of the Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford, for the last three years prior to returning to study and previously also developed an Independent Accredited Museum in Snowdonia after completing her MA. Her work involved a great deal of project management and community liaison and developed her interests in how cultural heritage is defined, perceived and managed.
Imogen has a passion for Peru, for mountainous terrains and for how its archaeological sites and cultural heritage is perceived and managed.
Theoretically she is concerned with the concepts of rituals, shrines, pilgrimage and cosmological representations within landscape archaeology and how 'ancient' traditions and perceptions are perpetuated and maintained.
Ancash, a large region located in Highland Peru, provides the perfect study area to research her concerns and it is a place she has already come to love dearly and will return to for several seasons of fieldwork during her studies.
Imogen's thesis aims to examine the nature of pilgrimage, to archaeological 'shrines' and museums in Ancash, and is a working title at present.
Please feel free to email Imogen if you are interested in her research.