Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Environmental Anthropology

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.

The Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Environmental Anthropology is a 30-month 0.5 FTE role which starts on 1 January 2025 and ends on 30 June 2027. The Research Fellow will carry out an individual research project into an environmental aspect of Indigenous cultures under socialism and/or beyond human anthropology of socialism. They will also contribute to investigation of the Socialist Anthropocene with a focus on the themes of agrarian politics, species under socialism and cultures of the Socialist Anthropocene, by engaging in an interdisciplinary dialogue with fellow members of the SAVA team.

The Postdoctoral Fellow in Environmental Anthropology will hold a PhD in anthropology or a related field in the humanities and social sciences awarded within the last three years. Their research should be focused on Indigenous cultures under socialism, including Soviet North and Central Asia and Mongolia, or the beyond human anthropology of socialism. Projects based on either case studies or comparative approaches to environmental anthropology of socialism, which deal with Indigenous ecological praxes and epistemologies, or which relate to the SAVA thematic focus on beyond human ecologies and cultures of the Socialist Anthropocene are likely to be of particular relevance. The candidate will have a record of peer-reviewed publications or other equivalent research outputs. They will be expected to demonstrate an openness to interdisciplinary and artistic methodologies, as well as skills in dissemination and communication of research and a willingness to participate fully in public f acing events.

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