Rethinking the geography PhD in New Zealand: navigating through contexts, circumstances and challenges

Abstract

We situate the contemporary PhD experience in the New Zealand context of robust international networks and scholarship, but one in which aspiring doctoral candidates have, until recently, been encouraged to study overseas. Of late, however, an increase in doctoral registrations can be linked to a series of drivers in place within the universities since the new millennium. With the impetus of the Performance-Based Research Fund, domestic scholarships, and the waiving of fees for international students the PhD has changed from a largely open-ended individual pursuit to one embedded within, and potentially, contributing to a wider research culture. Questions remain, however, about the experience of doctoral study itself, and we pose these with reference to the need for further consideration of the PhD’s role in academic identity, disciplinary reproduction and knowledge production.