PhD: Geosocial Worlds & Territorial Politics in Latin America

Descrizione

PhD: Geosocial Worlds & Territorial Politics in Latin America Sintesi in italiano (traduzione automatica): L'Università di Utrecht cerca un candidato per un dottorato di ricerca nel campo dell'antropologia culturale, focalizzato sui mondi geosociali e sulla politica territoriale in America Latina. Il progetto esplorerà come i processi geologici influenzano le dinamiche sociali e le disuguaglianze, attraverso un lavoro di campo di almeno 9 mesi in un sito latinoamericano a scelta. Il candidato dovrà scrivere una tesi di dottorato e un articolo per una rivista peer-reviewed entro quattro anni. È richiesta la partecipazione attiva alle attività del dipartimento e la contribuzione a insegnamenti (massimo 10%). È preferibile una laurea in antropologia culturale o discipline affini. Geological processes are often treated as background conditions to human life: inert and lifeless subterranean realms of rock, magma, tectonic plates, or mineral formations are often conceived as static objects rather than dynamic sociopolitical forces. Yet recent debates in geological anthropology invite us to think differently and consider how geologies are intrinsically entangled with histories and lived realities of inequality, violence, and resistance. Your job Drawing on recent debates in geological anthropology, this PhD project will explore how geologies can be approached as active constituents of everyday life in Latin America. It interrogates the knowability and unknowability of underground realms by examining how histories of power and forms of violence are embedded in Earth's stratigraphies; how geosocial formations give shape to plural human–Earth relationalities; and how geological processes mediate racialised, gendered, and classed inequalities. The PhD candidate is expected to select and follow a specific geological phenomenon, such as volcanic activity, seismicity, or critical minerals, to better understand the interconnected materialities, histories, and knowledge practices that underpin geosocial and capitalist relations. The project will examine the lived experiences of communities who engage with geologies in their everyday lives, including people living near lava deposits or under the threat of volcanic eruptions, (urban) residents of seismic risk zones, employees of geological monitoring institutions and state-led disaster risk authorities, or people involved in the extraction of critical minerals. Across these settings, the project interrogates how violence and resistance emerge through different spatial, temporal, and stratigraphic scales, and how these processes can be understood in relation to the geologies, materialities, and power relations through which landscapes and environments are transformed. Your job The candidate will join the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University and is expected to reside in the Netherlands and work from Utrecht for the duration of project, except for the fieldwork period(s). The project will be supervised by Tessa Diphoorn , Gijs Cremers , and Jesse Jonkman . The PhD position will be based at the Department of Cultural Anthropology in the Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences of Utrecht University. The project will be embedded in the Cultural Anthropology Department’s Sovereignty and Social Contestation Research Programme. The research programme addresses the interaction between power, authority, and legitimacy, which it seeks to connect with social movements, protest, and conflict. Please follow the links to learn more about the Cultural Anthropology Department and the Sovereignty and Social Contestation Research Programme . Tasks You will conduct ethnographic fieldwork in a Latin American field site of choice for at least 9 months. You will write and submit a PhD dissertation and submit at least one peer-reviewed journal article for publication, within four years. You will use and experiment with multisensorial or more-than-human research methods and evocative and creative forms of writing. You will contribute to the development of conceptual approaches to geological anthropology. You will actively participate in the meetings and wider activities of the Department of Cultural Anthropology's Sovereignty and Social Contestation (SoSCo) research programme. You will present and share your research results at (international) conferences. You will contribute to teaching activities (max 10%) within the department. Annuncio in inglese. Fonte: Euraxess (Commissione europea).