Postdoctoral Position in Sapere Aude-project on ‘Imaginaries of Existential Risks’

The Department of Digital Design and Information Studies within the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University invites applications for a postdoctoral position affiliated with the Sapere Aude research project ‘Imaginaries of “Existential Risks”: Making, Governing, and Contesting Humanity’s Future ’ funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.

The postdoctoral position is a full-time and 2-year fixed-term position. The position begins on 1 January 2025 or as soon as possible thereafter.

The School of Communication and Culture is committed to diversity and encourages all qualified applicants to apply regardless of their personal background.

Project

Since the beginning of the 21st century, scientists, policymakers, and social movements have been increasingly embracing a vision of the future in which ‘existential risks’ to humanity’s long-term survival figure as a central concern for social, economic, and political action in the present. The project investigates the production of existential risk imaginaries, their uptake in global governance, and their contestation through social movements. Grounded in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and in-depth, qualitative fieldwork at various sites where imaginaries of existential risks are mobilised, authorised, and essentialised, the project closes important gaps in critically assessing the politics of these new powerful forms of futuring.

Postdoctoral position

The successful applicant will be expected to carry out a specific work package in the project, which seeks to understand the impact of existential risk analysis in global governance. The postdoctoral researcher will investigate the uptake and reconfiguration of existential risk analysis in international organisations and how it contributes to re-envisioning the role and purpose of multilateral policymaking for attaining desirable futures across countries and generations. In particular, the postdoctoral researcher is expected to conduct ethnographic fieldwork within three initiatives concerned with the diagnosis of ‘global existential risks’ and the crafting of global responses and action vis-à-vis such risks and will critically examine the geopolitics resulting from them: the OECD’s ‘Strategic Foresight Unit’, the UN’s ‘Future Lab’ and ‘Emergency Platform’, and the World Economic Forum’s ‘Global Risk’ group. The work package will, moreover, consist of document analysis of ‘grey literature’ (policy reports, white papers, etc.) in relation to the initiatives. The postdoctoral researcher is, moreover, expected to carry out a research stay (funded by the project) at one of our advisory board members’ institutions (Stanford University, University of Oxford, or L’institut national de recherche pour l’agriculture, l’alimentation et l’environnement.

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