Research Fellow, Ethnography and Sociology of the Artificial Cryosphere
Emma Kowal
The European Research Council project "Cultures of the Cryosphere" (CultCryo) investigates the cultural preconditions and consequences of the use of artificial cooling and freezing technologies in nutrition, health and reproduction, air conditioning, data processing, laboratory research and other everyday practices. This interdisciplinary research project aims to investigate the far-reaching socio-ecological effects of this energy-intensive planetary "cryosphere" and aims to identify possible alternatives for a more sustainable future of dealing with artificial cold.
The CultCryo project consists of four international research groups at the Technical University of Darmstadt, the University of Paderborn, the University of Duisburg-Essen, and the Australian National University Canberra, as well as three participating project partners at the University of Hamburg, the University of Halle-Wittenberg and the Institute for Social-Ecological Research Frankfurt. It has an overarching budget of 10 Millon Euros.
Position overview
Your tasks
In this multi-faceted role, the selected candidate will be expected to conduct multi-sited ethnographic case studies, that will include mapping, across three domains: space cooling, biomedicine and food supply (beef). Additionally, they will contribute as part of the core project group to developing an online atlas on the cryosphere and its corresponding cultural phenomena. The research fellow will also have a key function in co-curating and managing the Cryogenic Cultures Multimedia Archive that acts as a crucial knowledge production and synthesis tool as well as a platform to collectively present our findings. The candidate will also have responsibility for co-advising and supporting the work of the wider CultCryo ethnographic team, as required.
Your profile
You will have a PhD in anthropology, STS, sociology, history, human geography or related discipline, and significant experience in ethnographic or qualitative social science fieldwork. Our ideal candidate will have experience in multi-sited research and working on interdisciplinary and/or international research projects, and a demonstrated record of publishing in high quality academic journals.
The project language is English, thus very good language skills are required. While not mandatory for applying for this position, it will be considered desirable if applicants are willing to familiarise with the German language.