GIGA: Postdoc in Comparative Politics with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa (Germany)

Postdocs

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Comparative Politics with a focus on Sub-Saharan Africa, German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Hamburg, Germany. Deadline: 26 May 2025.

The German Institute for Global and Area Studies (GIGA) / Leibniz-Institut für Globale und Regionale Studien is an independent social science research institute based in Hamburg. It analyses political, social, and economic developments in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East, and links this knowledge to questions of global significance. It combines region-specific analysis with innovative comparative research on accountability and participation, peace and security, globalisation and development, and global orders and foreign policies. The GIGA seeks to appoint a Postdoctoral Research Fellow (M/F/D) in Comparative Politics With a Focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.

Applications are invited for a full-time position, with an initial contract of three years and the possibility of another three years after successful evaluation and depending on the availability of funds. The successful applicant should start as soon as possible. The successful candidate will work on key questions and challenges in comparative politics with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Potential research areas include but are not limited to autocratisation and democratisation, domestic politics and/or institutions, external actors, comparative political economy, the comparative study of conflicts, questions of misinformation or repression, and the political challenges arising from digitalisation. They expect the candidate to outline a corresponding research agenda.

U College Dublin: Postdoc with Generation Peace (Ireland)

Postdocs

Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Generation Peace, University College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland. Deadline: 11 July 2025.

Applications are invited for a temporary post of a UCD Post-doctoral Research Fellow Level 1 within UCD School of Psychology, temporary from 1st Sep 2025 to 31st Aug 2026.

GENERATION PEACE does not ask how to protect 1.8 billion children in conflict-affected countries. Instead, it shows how youth – one-third of the world’s population – can build peace. This approach challenges the portrayal of youth as perpetrators (i.e. number of child soldiers) and positions youth as a driver of quality peace, rather than an outcome (e.g. primary school enrolment). Addressing the gaps in the existing research necessitates a holistic, multilevel model tested with diverse methods across contexts and time.

More specifically, this role will advance Work Package 2 (WP2) of GENERATION PEACE, quantitatively examining the cross-national impact of youth peacebuilding on quality peace. WP2 will produce a Youth Peacebuilding Indicator (YPI), compatible with cross-national databases from 1946-2020 for 193 UN member states, operationalised across two domains: (1) capacities for nonviolent conflict transformation and (2) foundations for sustainable peace and development. The YPI will integrate (a) existing data on youth; (b) recode or ‘slice’ existing data to focus on youth; and (c) create additional variables within each domain. Supervised coding and Expert Review will ensure data compatibility and quality. Critical to identifying potential threats to endogeneity, multilevel analyses will be complemented by an instrumental variable test and sensitivity analyses to selection and bias. The relative degree of confidence in the YPI codes will also be modelled.

U Strathclyde: Role of 3rd Sector Organizations in Supporting Asylum Seekers and Refugees (UK)

Postdocs

Postdoctoral Researcher: Role of Third Sector Organizations in Supporting Asylum Seekers’ and Refugees’ Integration, Citizenship, and Belonging, University of Strathclyde, UK. Deadline: 9 May 2025.

The role of charities and community groups has become more prominent over the last decade of austerity and ongoing cost-of-living crisis, including in relation to support for asylum seekers and refugees. The aim of the study is to address this gap and provide evidence on the role of third sector organisations in supporting refugee integration and individuals who are navigating the UK asylum system.  This opportunity is for 3 years.

U Deusto: Postdoc in Re-shaping Attitudes about Refugees and Gender Minorities in Spain and Portugal (Spain)

Postdocs

Postdoctoral Researcher: Re-shaping Attitudes about Refugees and Gender Minorities in Spain and Portugal, University of Duesto, Bilbao, Spain. Deadline: 28 March 2025.

The Faculty of Social and Human Sciences at the University of Deusto is seeking a motivated and highly qualified Postdoctoral Researcher to join the project Re-shaping Attitudes about Refugees and Gender Minorities in Spain and Portugal. This project explores how negative public opinion and social attitudes can be transformed using cutting-edge quantitative methods, particularly survey experiments. The postdoctoral researcher will assist the PI in devising and testing alternative human-rights-based narratives about refugees and gender minorities to counter hate speech and marginalising far-right narratives that target these vulnerable/disadvantaged groups.

Boston College: Postdoc/Visiting Assistant Professor in Justice & the Common Good (USA)

Postdocs

Postdoc / Core Fellow / Visiting Assistant Professor in Justice and the Common Good, Boston College, Boston, MA, USA. Deadline: 10 March 2025.

The Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences at Boston College invites applications for the position of Core Fellow/Visiting Assistant Professor in Justice and the Common Good with a focus on Migration, Diaspora Studies, Ethnic Studies, Peace and Justice, and/or Digital Humanities. The appointment for this one-year postdoctoral visiting assistant professorship will be for the 2025-2026 academic year. Salary is competitive, and the position is renewable upon favorable review for up to three years.

Boston College is a Jesuit, Catholic university that strives to integrate research excellence with a foundational commitment to formative liberal arts education. Boston College requires all students to complete a liberal arts University Core Curriculum with 15 requirements as the foundation of their undergraduate education. Core Fellows teach signature courses in the Core including interdisciplinary Complex Problem and Enduring Question courses developed for first-year students which are part of an ongoing renewal of the University Core Curriculum. Core Fellows participate in the Core Fellows Program, which is designed to help newly-minted Ph.D. holders in their scholarly pursuits as well as in becoming outstanding instructors through pedagogical training focused on the education of the whole person.

During one semester of the 2025-2026 academic year, the Core Fellow will join a teaching team for a course with lecture, lab, and reflection session components. The Core Fellow will be primarily responsible for hands-on, project-based lab sections associated with the Complex Problem course, “Moving Matters: Migration and Transformation Across the Americas,” co-taught by faculty from the School of Social Work and the History Department. In the other semester, the Core Fellow will teach an Enduring Question course paired with a course designed by another scholar in the liberal arts. There may also be opportunities to teach electives in their field.

Northeastern U: Postdoc at Center for Transformative Media (USA)

Postdocs

Postdoctoral Research Associate, Center for Transformative Media, Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA. Deadline: Open until filled; posted 6 January 2025.

The Center for Communication, Media Innovation and Social Change within the College of Arts, Media, and Design at Northeastern University invites applications for a fully funded Postdoctoral Research Associate. The successful candidate will have the opportunity to engage in a series of research projects at the intersection of networked urban mobilities and mobile communication, with a particular focus on understanding how marginalized communities creatively appropriate media technologies.

Projects include:

  • Mobile Networked Creativity: An investigation of how marginalized communities around the world creatively engage with networked technologies. The project includes mapping/visualizing how these creative practices occur around the Globe.
  • Retro Mobile Gaming Database: A mobile gaming database of historic mobile games and artifacts to aid researchers in games studies.
    Retro Mobile Gaming Collection: Producing a media art show on the history of mobile communication and mobile games, and contributing to the growth of the retro mobile gaming collection housed in the Center.
  • Micromobilities Justice: Analyzing networked urban mobilities in Global South urban spaces as they relate to mobility justice and social inclusion.

This is a full time position for one year, with potential for renewal based on performance and funding availability.

Birkbeck, U of London: Postdoc on Impact of Immigration on Brazilian Society (UK)

Postdocs

Postdoctoral Researcher on the Impact of Immigration on Brazilian Society, Birkbeck, University of London, UK. Deadline: 2 February 2025.

Birkbeck, University of London, is seeking a Postdoctoral Researcher to join an international and interdisciplinary team working on a project looking at the transformative impact of immigration on Brazilian society. Funded by the British Academy, the research project ‘Globalisation from below: livelihoods, trade and transnationalism in Brazil’s informal economy’, is a collaboration between Birkbeck and the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Belo Horizonte, Brazil). The project focuses on the informal economy in Belo Horizonte with an emphasis on the role of Chinese immigrants and the everyday cross-cultural and economic practices that produce globalisation from below.

Through three key strands, the research explores:

  • Economic interactions and conflicts between Chinese migrants, Brazilian workers and local street vendors
  • Emerging social relations and forms of belonging, and
  • Socio-cultural and economic transformations in urban spaces

Plus, a collaborative methodology will engage participants in an artistic-cultural process creating spaces for dialogue and cooperation.

The project will produce an exhibition and a Transnational Informal Economy Atlas revealing the ways in which globalisation from below connects and transforms urban livelihoods, spaces and societies with a focus on Brazil-China relations.

Osnabrück U: Postdoc in Futures of Migration (Germany)

Postdocs

Postdoc in Futures of Migration, Institute of Migration Research and Intercultural Studies, Osnabrück University, Germany. Deadline: 7 January 2025.

As part of the research area ‘Futures of Migration’ (FuturMig) funded by the Lower Saxony Ministry of Science and Culture, Osnabrück University is seeking to appoint a Postdoctoral Researcher.

The Institute for Migration Research and Intercultural Studies (IMIS) at Osnabrück University, the Center for Global Migration Research (CeMig) at the Georg August University Göttingen, the Center for Educational Integration (ZBI) at the University of Hildesheim, the Leibniz Institute for Educational Media, Georg Eckert Institute (GEI), Brunswig, and the Friedland Museum are cooperating in the Lower Saxony research area ‘FuturMig’ (2025–2029).

‘FuturMig’ deals with ideas and strategies for shaping the future of societies that are shaped by migration and diversity in political, media, and societal debates, fields of practice and migration research. ‘FuturMig’ is reviewing the academic state of the art, is planning the establishment of an international guest professorship and the development of a follow-up collaborative research initiative. ‘FuturMig’ focuses in particular on educational contexts – early childhood institutions, schools, universities, civil society initiatives, museums and memorials.

U Edinburgh: IASH Postdocs: Making A Nation (UK)

Postdocs

Postdocs and Early Career Fellowships: Making a Nation, Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK. Deadline: 25 April 2025.

IASH is pleased to offer a range of postdoctoral and early-career Fellowships for recent graduates. Closing dates for application are late February and late April each year for visits in the following academic year. The theme for 2025-26 will be Making A Nation. This will be a year-long exploration of independence and nation-making, culminating in the 250th anniversary of the ratification of the US Declaration of Independence on 4 July 2026.

The theme of nation-building raises deeper, more critical questions about the nature of legitimacy and the politics of identity: for whom and by whom nationhood is claimed. It also raises questions of land use and (dis)possession and the intricate relationship between territoriality and (de)coloniality. In a world beset by conflict, what might we learn from past examples of nation-making that enable a more positive and just vision of what it means to belong?

It is important to note that they still welcome applications on all topics and in all areas of the arts, humanities and social sciences to continue IASH’s traditional interdisciplinary work across CAHSS schools, alongside Making A Nation.

CUHK: Postdoc at Centre for Cultural Studies (Hong Kong)

Postdocs

Postdoctoral Fellow, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China. Deadline: 4 January 2025.

The Centre for Cultural Studies invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Inter-Asia Decolonial Epistemologies. Preferred areas of expertise include, but are not limited to, Environmental Humanities, Critical Humanities, Public Humanities, Cultural Studies, Digital and Interactive Media, and Science and Technology Studies.

Applicants should have a PhD in Cultural Studies, Arts and Humanities, Science and Technology Studies, or related disciplines received within the past five years. Preference will be given to applicants who have not previously enjoyed the resources at CUHK, and who would particularly benefit from and contribute to CUHK’s intellectual life. Applicants who can contribute to the intellectual and cultural diversity of the Centre are especially welcome to apply.