The medina’s voices: a holistic understanding of continuity for urban heritage

I’m Rim, a PhD graduate from the School of Architecture. I am originally from Morocco but moved to the UK in 2019 to pursue my PhD. I have a deep interest in the beautiful artefacts that human beings can create, with a slight preference towards Islamic cultural heritage.

Before undertaking my PhD, I completed two masters’ degrees: one in Architecture at the National School of Architecture in Rabat (Morocco), and one master research in University of LeMans (France) in history, civilisations and heritage.

Besides being an academic, I enjoy drawing, photographing and deep conversations with loved ones.

My research

I am looking at the role of historic cities in our post-modern world, especially with the challenges it faces in this delicate balance between conservation and development. More specifically, I am interested in medinas, which are the historical cores in North Africa and the Middle East.

I investigate the governmental and community representations of the medina through the way they define it, value it, perceive its discontinuities and through their aspirations for its future. My aim is to understand how the medina is perceived and approached. Then, through this multi-vocal understanding, the research aims to provide insights on how to inform the continuity of the place, a continuity that speaks to the multiplicity of perspectives.

I am a qualitative researcher: my work involved around a hundred interviews and more than 400 people surveyed. The overall data collection involved observations, institutional documents and photographs as well.

My work opens up ways to reimagine preservation discourses and advance more holistic and nuanced frameworks to manage our historic cities. In the end, what my work aims for is to enrich our understanding of living urban heritage and its complexity.

My next steps and beyond

I graduated in July and I would love to work in the field of heritage management, whether in an international organisation or in Non-governmental organisations and Think Tanks. Besides, I also really enjoy academia and its variety of teaching and research. I am looking forward to find a job and contribute to society.

My 3-minute thesis

The 3MT experience taught me to share my thesis in a concise but entertaining way, a way that all audiences can understand and enjoy. Also, I really enjoyed the day: I woke up with a lot of fear because of the public speaking aspect of it, but when I pushed through my fear and I still presented my work, I was so proud of myself.

So besides being a great way to disseminate research, it is also a great self-development opportunity. Finally, the day was amazing thanks to the lovely people that I got to meet.