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.

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 Mass Amherst: Postdoc in Relationality and Ethics (USA)

Postdocs

Relationally and ethics postdoctoral research associate, CBIKS, University of Massachusetts Amherst, MA, USA. Deadline: open until filled; posted 20 August 2024.

This postdoctoral position is with the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Science (CBIKS), a National Science Foundation Science & Technology Center. CBIKS is an interdisciplinary center that utilizes community-based research to examine how to effectively and ethically braid Indigenous and Western science research, education, and practices related to the urgent and interconnected areas of climate change, care of cultural places, and food sovereignty.

CBIKS activities include conducting place-based research in regional Hubs worldwide while documenting and promoting ethical community-based practices of braiding Indigenous and Western science. The person who holds this position will assist two CBIKS thematic working groups (TWGs): the Ethics TWG and the Relationality & Research Development TWG.

This is an on-site position at CBIKS Central on the UMass Amherst campus in Amherst, MA with the expectation of some remote work. This is a one-year position with the possibility of renewal in a second year.

UCL: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Global Socialisms (UK)

Postdocs
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Global Socialisms, University College London, London, UK. Deadline: 15 September 2024.

Applications are invited for the position of Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Global Socialisms within the framework of the ‘The Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts’, a research project funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) under the UK government’s Horizon Europe funding guarantee. The Socialist Anthropocene in the Visual Arts (SAVA) sets out to radically transform current debates on the Anthropocene, addressing the major lacuna in existing accounts by establishing the Socialist Anthropocene as a novel conceptual framework that asserts the constitutive role of the twentieth century environmental histories of socialism in the formation of new geological times. It is the first large-scale interdisciplinary research project that institutes the Socialist Anthropocene as a new field of study within the critical corpus concerned with challenging and decentring the West-centric discourses of the Anthropocene. The approach of the project is to reconstruct the histories of the Socialist Anthropocene through visual arts led interdisciplinary research, which entails analysing historical artworks and engaging with contemporary art practices that act as a catalyst to integrate the insights of multiple disciplines and as a critical agent to pose ambitious and expansive questions, challenging assumptions and engendering new cross-disciplinary paradigms to illuminate the specificities of the Socialist Anthropocene. The research incorporates insights from the fields of art history, environmental history, the history of science, anthropology and the history of global socialisms, along with the work of contemporary artists who contribute to the SAVA team as creative fellows. The distinctiveness, epistemologies, relationalities and potentialities of the Socialist Anthropocene are analysed through annual thematic streams. The focus of this cohort of research fellows and creative fellows will be on agrarian and botanical politics of socialism, animal husbandry and species under socialism and the cultures of the Socialist Anthropocene, from official to dissident and Indigenous approaches to the natural world.

U Penn: Postdoc in Communication, Group Identity, and Computational Methods (USA)

Postdocs
Postdoctoral Researcher in Communication, Group Identity, and Computational  Methods, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA. Deadline: 15 August 2024.

The successful candidate for this position will work in the Annenberg School for Communication under the supervision of Dr. Deen Freelon. A recent hire at Annenberg, Freelon is in the process of starting a new lab, and this postdoc will play a crucial role in helping him do so. The unifying idea of the new lab’s work is that many facets of group identity—including race, gender, sexuality, religion, nationality, and others—have historically been neglected as potential factors in co-determining communication patterns and outcomes. Quantification of such characteristics must be done carefully to maximize construct validity and minimize harm and exclusion. (The term “group identity” is used broadly and without reference to any particular theoretical tradition.) Applicants with strong interests in these and related issues are encouraged to apply, as are those with experience analyzing under-studied media types including podcasts, images, and video.

Roughly half this individual’s time will be spent working on Freelon’s projects, while the other half will be devoted to projects initiated independently and with other research groups. The position is designed to allow a highly motivated researcher to build a strong CV under the mentorship of a longtime innovator in political communication and computational social science. Extension of the position to a second year (if desired) will depend on effective performance in the first.

U Aarhus: Postdoc in 2nd Language Learning in Danish Social & Healthcare Education (Denmark)

Postdocs
Postdoc in Second Language Learning in Danish Social and Healthcare Education, Department of Educational Anthropology and Psychology, University of Aarhus, Emdrup Campus, Denmark. Deadline: 10 June 2024.

The research project Sociolinguistic Barriers and Potentials among Second Language Learners in Danish Social and Healthcare Education explores social and linguistic barriers and potentials among second language learners in Danish social and healthcare education (‘SOSU-hjælperuddannelsen’ and ‘SOSU-assistentuddannelsen’), an educational field which has attracted increasing political attention due to a drastic projected shortfall in healthcare personnel in coming years and high dropout rates. More than 30% of SOSU students are assumed to have Danish as a second language, representing more than 109 different nationalities and a vast array of linguistic repertoires.

The project focuses on the linguistic practices of students with Danish as a second language, the linguistic barriers and demands associated with different parts of their healthcare training, and how students respond to these barriers and demands in everyday interaction, drawing on linguistic and sociocultural registers of healthcare, education and care. The SOSU programme includes a variety of educational arenas for linguistic minority students, including healthcare training, language lessons and internships across nursing homes, hospital wards and private homes, where students are expected to interact with teachers, supervisors and co-students along with patients, elderly citizens, relatives and various kinds of healthcare personnel. An in-depth linguistic-ethnographic approach is applied, including extensive digital sound recordings, qualitative interviews and participant observation, to explore students’ linguistic practices, barriers and potentials, along with the various linguistic skills and sociocultural registers associated with becoming a ‘good SOSU worker’ across different institutional arenas.

U Idaho: Postdoc in International Relations (USA)

Postdocs
Postdoctoral Fellowship in International Relations, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID, USA. Deadlines: Open until filled; posted 16 May 2024.

The Martin Institute and Program in International Studies, and the Idaho Society of Fellows, are now accepting applications for a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in International Relations to begin July 1, 2024. Fellows will pursue their own research and teach one course per semester. The unit is particularly interested in recruiting candidates whose work complements existing unit initiatives in area studies, international organizations, conflict/peace, and/or human rights.

U Illinois Chicago: Bridge to Faculty Postdoctoral Research Associate: AI & Minority Representation (USA)

“JobBridge to Faculty Postdoctoral Research Associate: AI and Minority Representation, Department of Communication, University of Illinois at Chicago, IL, USA. Deadline: 12 January 2024.

The Department of Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago invites applications for a Bridge to Faculty Postdoctoral Research Associate specializing in AI and Minority representation. The position focuses on the ways artificial intelligence engages in and impacts minority representation, conceived broadly. Areas of interest include algorithmic bias and oppression; AI and data justice; black box design; minority histories and cultures of computing, and other counters to deficit approaches; generative AI and bias; platform design; Virtual, Augmented and Extended reality interfaces; robotics, wearable technologies and interfaces of the future; and DEI practices.

The candidate will have earned a doctorate in Communication or a related field, will demonstrate strong promise of scholarly achievement and teaching success, show good prospects for external research funding, and will demonstrate commitment to multidisciplinary scholarship.

The Bridge to Faculty Scholars program seeks to advance diversity on the permanent faculty level by encouraging the recruitment, retention, and promotion of outstanding scholars from different backgrounds, with an emphasis on attracting individuals from groups who have been historically underrepresented in our discipline. Bridge to Faculty is designed to recruit scholars with the goal of transitioning them to faculty members after two years. After the first year, and subject to satisfactory performance and University approval, this position may be re-appointed for a second year. Successful postdoctoral associates may have the opportunity to transition to tenure-track faculty starting in the 2026-2027 academic year. Scholars will participate in a mentoring experience within the department, with the opportunity to meet other Scholars through cohort-based events and workshops organized by the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Engagement. The Bridge to the Faculty Scholars Program is funded by the Chancellor’s Office and administered through the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Engagement.

Indiana U: Postdoc in Race & Ethnicity in Society (US)

Postdocs
Two Postdoctoral Fellowships, Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA. Deadline: 5 October 2023.

The Center for Research on Race and Ethnicity in Society (CRRES) at Indiana University, Bloomington, invites applications for up to two CRRES Postdoctoral Fellowships. These fellowships provide support to scholars studying race and ethnicity from a broad range of fields in the social sciences and humanities, including education, criminal justice, environmental studies, international studies (e.g., climate, human rights, and development), gender/sexualities, public health, and media (e.g., consumer culture, game design, film, social media activism, and sports media). They are particularly interested in candidates whose research intersects with African American and African Diaspora Studies, Native and Indigenous Studies, Latino Studies, Asian American Studies, African Studies, Latin American Studies, and/or Global Indigenous Studies. Fellows will be placed in one of IU’s sixteen degree granting schools, and are expected to pursue research activities associated with their primary area of work, as demonstrated by conference presentations and published works. CRRES fellowships are designed to advance the careers of new scholars by providing opportunities to research, teach, and connect with mentors and with faculty in host departments. Strong applicants will demonstrate evidence of scholarly potential that will make them competitive for tenure-track appointments at Indiana University and other research universities.

York U: Postdoc in Education, Mobility & Social Capital (Canada)

Postdocs
Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora, York University, Toronto, Canada. Deadline: open until filled (posted June 2023).

York University invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellowship in the area of education, social mobility, and social capital amongst Black adult learners. The Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community & Diaspora is a university chair in the Faculty of Education at York University, which aims to advance access, equity and inclusivity to education through community engagement and collaborative action. First launched in 2008, the chair holder initiates, facilitates, directs and engages in research, educational programs, and community partnerships which are culturally responsive and relevant to the educational and social needs, interests and aspirations of Black and other racialized community members.

The Postdoctoral Fellow will engage in research that (1) advances knowledge about the lives of Black people in Canada with attention to the educational and community interventions that can support Black students as well as (2) establishes a comprehensive, nation-wide understanding of the pathways racialized individuals utilize towards realizing educational, social and economic mobility in Canada. It is expected that this Fellowship will offer emerging Black scholars and recent graduates new and/or additional opportunities, supports and education that will build on their graduate work; as well as opportunities to engage in research, writing, publishing and mentorship activities.