BFE Fieldwork Grants Scheme
We are thrilled to announce the winners of the 2026 BFE Fieldwork Grants scheme: these are Zachariah Addei-Thomson (SOAS, London), for archival research in Basel, Switzerland; Keren Chen (Durham University), for fieldwork in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province, Northeast China; Elizabeth Parkes (University of Bristol), for fieldwork in Japan; and Yasmin Pezeshki (University of Birmingham), for fieldwork in South Korea.
All three proposals were excellently framed and gave clear descriptions of the research and proposed fieldwork. We look forward to reading their reports after they return from the field. Outlines of the winners’ research projects are below. The four winners will each receive £500 for fieldwork. There were nine submissions in total for the 2026 iteration of the prize, and the Chair of the prize panel commented on the particularly high standard of applications this year, writing, “It was an amazingly strong field. In an ideal world, we would have liked to have funded everybody.” Many thanks to our judges: Prof. Henry Stobart (Chair), Prof. Barley Norton (Goldsmiths, London), and Prof. Cassandre Balosso-Bardin (KU Leuven).
Huge congratulations to Zachariah, Keren, Lizzie and Yasmin!
Zachariah Addei-Thomson (SOAS, London)
My research explores how recorded sound first emerged in the Gold Coast (present-day Ghana), focusing on the introduction of the gramophone and the early development of the record industry. Rather than seeing these technologies as simply imported from Europe, I examine how they became part of existing networks of trade, religion, and everyday life.
A key aspect of my work looks at the role of Christian missionaries and their associated trading companies in shaping how African music was recorded and represented. Missionaries were not only involved in distributing new technologies such as the gramophone but also influenced how African musical practices were documented, categorised, and understood.
My fieldwork in Basel will focus on rare archival materials related to missionary trading networks that document the movement of goods between Europe and West Africa. These sources provide crucial insight into how sound technologies and records reached the region and the infrastructures that supported their circulation.
By bringing together archival research and ethnomusicological approaches, my project sheds new light on the early history of recorded music in West Africa and highlights the complex relationships between technology, colonialism, and musical life.
Keren Chen (Durham University)
My PhD project explores Korean Chinese hengdi music (a daegeum-derived transverse flute). Korean Chinese communities, formed through migration from the Korean Peninsula to Northeast China since the seventeenth century, have developed a distinctive musical culture. While preserving Korean traditions, their culture has also been shaped by China’s socio-political context and transnational interactions involving China, the West, Japan, South Korea, and North Korea. These dynamics are reflected in their musical instrument culture. As living environments and cultural exchanges evolved, original instruments were adapted into forms rooted in the Korean Peninsula yet distinctive to the Korean Chinese practice. The hengdi exemplifies instrumental reform and functions as a compelling case of cultural reinvention and trans-regional flow.
My fieldwork is conducted in Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province, where I engage directly with local musical practices. I undertake embodied hengdi training while observing institutions, performances, and teaching practices, and collecting materials. Interviews with local artists focus on their backgrounds and recollections of senior musicians and earlier practices. Through this fieldwork, I aim to examines hengdi’s history, repertoire, pedagogy, and performance practices, situating its music-making within migration and cross-cultural interaction, and exploring contemporary Korean Chinese cultural positioning and identity.
Elizabeth Parkes (University of Bristol)
The musical cultures represented in anime soundtracks are hugely diverse, presenting music from not only Japan, but also India, China, Russia and beyond alongside the Japanese visual content of anime. My research is concerned with the way this music is produced and delivered, using ethnographic research methods combined with textual and musical analysis to present not only how this music is delivered to audiences through the medium of anime, but to investigate the processes behind making music for anime, and specifically the relationship between nationality and music in this industry.
To this end, I will be travelling to Japan at the end of the calendar year 2026 to conduct interviews with participants, including those who will have completed diaries of their work with musical cultures in anime, and complete participant observations at concerts, expos, and in studios and creative working spaces. Unlike prior studies that take an auteur-focused approach to researching music for screen, this research project will collect the voices of not only composers, but also producers, performers, and technicians as well as directors to demonstrate the way that the sound worlds of anime music staff contribute to the soundtracks of anime.
Yasmin Pezeshki (University of Birmingham)
My research explores how Iranian K‑pop fans build alternative listening communities that help them express identity, share emotion, and stay connected across borders. Since the 1979 Revolution, music in Iran has been shaped by shifting rules, moral expectations, and occasional state support. In this environment, genres considered “unauthorised,” including K‑pop, become politically sensitive. However, Iranian fans continue to listen, relying on filter‑breaking apps to bypass internet filtering, shutdowns, and shifting levels of state tolerance.
These restrictions have also contributed to a growing wave of outward migration. In recent years, many young Iranians have turned toward East Asia, and South Korea has become a particularly meaningful destination. For some, early engagement with K‑culture inside Iran develops into hopes for study, work, and long‑term settlement abroad. This project examines how listening practices not only travel globally but also influence young people’s decisions to move toward the centre of the K‑pop industry.
Fieldwork in South Korea will explore how Iranian fans’ musical lives change once they are no longer limited by Iran’s restrictions. Through interviews, participant observation, and sound‑focused ethnography, I will document how access to concerts, merchandise, and public fan spaces shapes new forms of belonging in the diaspora.
PREVIOUS BFE FIELDWORK GRANT AWARD WINNERS
Click on the links below to view previous recipients of BFE Fieldwork Grants:
BFE Fieldwork Grant recipients 2025
BFE Fieldwork Grant recipients 2024
BFE Fieldwork Grant recipients 2023
BFE Fieldwork Grant recipients 2022
BFE Fieldwork Grant recipients 2021
BFE Fieldwork Grant recipients 2020
BFE Fieldwork Grant recipients 2019
BFE Fieldwork Grant recipients 2018
BFE Fieldwork Grant recipients 2017
BFE Fieldwork Grant recipients 2016