Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Environmental Ethnography and River Biographies amid climate change

Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Environmental Ethnography and River Biographies amid climate change

Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education

The position

A Postdoctoral Research Fellow position at the interdisciplinary ERC research project RiverPulse is available at the Department of Language and Culture, Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences and Education.

About the project RiverPulse: Reconfiguring human–nature interactions as an assemblage at the Arctic frontline of climate change is an ERC Advanced Grant project at UiT, The Arctic University of Norway. It examines how accelerating climate change transforms Arctic salmon rivers as ecological systems, multispecies environments, lived places and sites of governance. The broader aim is to advance assemblage thinking as an empirically grounded framework for understanding climate change as a crisis of relations and Arctic salmon rivers as assemblages of ecological, social, cultural and political processes.

The project works across three river regions: Reisa in Norway, Tornio in Finland and Sweden, and Kapisillit in Greenland. The communities are multilingual and -cultural, including Sámi and Kalaallit Indigenous communities and Kven and Meänkieli minority contexts. RiverPulse combines ecological and quantitative research with ethnographic, historical, citizen-science and governance approaches to understand how climate-driven changes in rivers and salmon systems reconfigure river–salmon–human relations, knowledge and governance.

RiverPulse is designed as an interdisciplinary research programme, where the announecd postdoctoral research fellow position is one of four positions. Ecological and quantitative evidence will be interpreted alongside qualitative and community-based knowledge, while each researcher retains clear scholarly responsibility for their own area. You will join a team spanning the humanities, social sciences and environmental sciences, with interdisciplinary collaborators and local research assistants across the three river regions.

The position is a fixed term position for a duration of 3 years. It is a prerequisite that the applicant can carry out the project over the full course of the employment period. No person may hold more than one fixed term position as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the same institution.

The Department has a very active and diverse research profile, and hosts about 140 employees the majority of which are situated at the Tromsø campus, but some are at the Alta campus. There are about 500 students at the department.

As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, you will have the opportunity to advance your scientific career and further qualify for academic positions. If you do not already have the educational competence that meets the requirements for an Associate Professor position in Norway, UiT will arrange such competence during the employment period.

The workplace is at UiT in Tromsø, and some travel should be expected in the role. You must be able to start in the position by the 1st of April 2027.

The project/position's field of research

We are recruiting four postdoctoral research fellows with complementary expertise. Each position has its own research question and responsibilities, while all four fellows will contribute to the interdisciplinary work of RiverPulse across ecological, social, cultural and political processes. Previous Arctic or northern research experience is an advantage, but it is not generally required. We welcome applications from candidates who can explain how their expertise can contribute to RiverPulse. You are not expected to arrive as an expert in every method or discipline used in the project.

In addition to their position-specific research responsibilities (please see below), all postdoctoral fellows will contribute to shared RiverPulse activities, including project meetings, workshops and events, research communication and dissemination, and other project-related activities. In addition, the position involves periods of extended fieldwork in one or several of our research sites.

You must submit a preliminary research plan of maximum 3 pages, excluding references. Please outline how you would develop your research within the wider RiverPulse project. The plan should identify the questions you would pursue, the material and methods you would draw on, and conceptual approach you envisage. It should explain how your research connects with the relevant RiverPulse position and with the project as a whole, what you would contribute independently, and where you see the most important opportunities for collaboration across disciplines and river regions. Where relevant, please address fieldwork, community engagement and ethical considerations.

The 3-page research plan is not expected to be a fully independent project proposal. We want to see how you formulate a coherent line of research of your own within an already defined ERC project, and how you would make use of the opportunities for collaboration that RiverPulse provides.

Your role

You will contribute expertise in environmental ethnography and biographical research. Your research will focus primarily on one RiverPulse river, while also contributing to comparative work across all three river regions. The position examines how environmental change and changing river relations are negotiated, contested, remembered and narrated over time, and how historical, colonial and political-economic processes shape river communities, practices and understandings amid climate change. The position will address the following research question:

How are environmental changes negotiated, contested, remembered and narrated over time in the Arctic Salmon river communities?

Duties of the position

• Conduct ethnographic fieldwork, interviews and historical research in one RiverPulse river region.
• Work with ethnographic, narrative, oral-historical and archival materials to develop a longitudinal river biography that traces environmental change and the historical, colonial and political-economic processes through which river relations have been configured.
• Analyse how changing river conditions are interpreted, negotiated and contested in everyday practices and understandings.
• Link ethnographic research with RiverPulse citizen science, including how community members observe, document and interpret environmental changes in their rivers. Contribute to piloting the RiverPulse app, participant engagement and interpretation of citizen-science observations. Technical app development will be carried out with project partners.
• Develop your own analyses and publications within this position’s research area and contribute to comparative RiverPulse outputs.

Contact

For further information about the position, please contact Head of Department Gustav Jørgen Pedersen:

• phone: +47 77 64 69 74
• email: Gustav.j.pedersen@uit.no

or Professor Sari Päivikki Pietikäinen:

• phone: +47 77 64 47 02
• email: Sari.pietikaeinen@uit.no

Qualifications

Required qualifications

• A PhD in anthropology, human geography, sociology, discourse studies, critical sociolinguistics, environmental humanities or another field relevant to ethnographic and qualitative research.
• Experience in qualitative fieldwork and demonstrated expertise in ethnographic, narrative, discursive, biographical or closely related qualitative research.
• Excellent written and spoken English.
• Working proficiency in at least one language used in a RiverPulse field community, at a level sufficient to conduct qualitative field research independently.

Relevant field-site languages are: Reisa – Norwegian, Kven and Northern Sámi; Tornio – Finnish, Swedish and Meänkieli; Kapisillit – Kalaallisut and Danish. In your application, please describe your level of competence and how you are able to use the language in field research.

Preferred qualifications

• Experience with oral history or archival research, Indigenous or local knowledge, citizen science, participatory or digital research methods, coloniality or decolonial approaches, or indigenous studies.
• Experience with Arctic or northern communities.

Fluency in English is required and working knowledge of Norwegian or a Scandinavian language is desirable. Nordic applicants can document their capabilities by attaching their high school diploma.

In the assessment the main emphasis will be attached to the submitted works and the project proposal for the qualifying work. Emphasis shall also be attached to experience from popularization/dissemination and academic policy and administrative activity.

During the assessment emphasis will be put on the candidate’s motivation, potential for research, and personal suitability for the position. We will consider both what you already bring to the position and your potential to develop within RiverPulse.

In addition to the specific qualifications, we will place emphasis on:

• The quality and relevance of your research and your research potential;
• Your analytical skills, intellectual curiosity and motivation for interdisciplinary research on changing Arctic river systems and communities;
• Your understanding of the position you are applying for and of how your expertise can contribute to the wider RiverPulse project;
• Your ability to conduct research with scholarly independence within the overall framework of RiverPulse, including developing your own analyses and publications, while contributing actively and constructively to the project’s collaborative interdisciplinary research;
• Initiative and openness to engaging with perspectives, methods and forms of knowledge beyond your own disciplinary background;
• Communication and interpersonal skills that support a collaborative, inclusive and constructive research environment.

At UiT we put emphasis on the quality, relevance and significance of the research work and not on where the work is published, in accordance with the principles of The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).

We offer

• Good career opportunities
• Flexible working hours and a state collective pay agreement
• Pension scheme through the state pension fund
• The opportunity to join an ERC Advanced Grant project addressing a major environmental and societal challenge in the Arctic.
• A genuinely interdisciplinary research environment bringing humanities, social sciences and environmental sciences into sustained collaboration.
• A clearly defined research role together with support to develop your own analyses, publications and academic profile within RiverPulse.
• Opportunities to contribute to cutting-edge interdisciplinary research, workshops and wider project activities while building your own research network.
• A collaborative, inclusive and constructive working environment in which different forms of expertise and knowledges are valued.

Norwegian health policy aims to ensure that everyone, irrespective of their personal finances and where they live, has access to good health and care services of equal standard. As an employee you will become member of the National Insurance Scheme which also include health care services.

More practical information for working and living in Norway can be found here: https://uit.no/staffmobility

Application

Please note that the application will only be assessed based on the information submitted by the application deadline via Jobbnorge. It is therefore important that you include all necessary documents demonstrating your qualifications for the position. As English is the working language of the research group, the CV, application letter, motivation letter and research plan must be written in English.

Your application must include:

• Application letter
• A motivation letter of maximum 2 pages. Please explain why you are applying for this RiverPulse position, how your background prepares you for it, and how you understand the scientific and practical responsibilities of the role. Please also reflect briefly on how you would contribute to interdisciplinary and collaborative research and on what you see as important or challenging in conducting climate-change research in Arctic river environments and communities.
• Project proposal (max 3 pages)
• CV
• Diplomas and transcripts (all degrees)
• Documentation of English proficiency
• Contact information to 2-3 references
• Documentation of educational competence, if available
• Up to five academic publications or other scholarly works that you consider most relevant to the position. Your doctoral dissertation may be included as one of these works. In your application letter (max 1 page), please explain how you see that these publications link to RiverPulse.

Documented completion of a PhD is a requirement for taking up a postdoctoral position. If you are in the final stages of your PhD, you may still apply for the position, provided that you submit confirmation that your doctoral thesis has been submitted for assessment.

Your application should help us understand not only whether you meet the formal criteria, but also how you see yourself contributing to RiverPulse and developing as a researcher within the project. All documentation to be assessed must be in a Scandinavian language or English. If documentation of English language proficiency is missing at the time of application, it must be provided before starting the position.

Note to candidates:

We know that no single candidate will bring every kind of experience or expertise listed here, and we do not expect you to. What matters is that you meet the required qualifications, bring a strong perspective of your own, and can see how your work could contribute to RiverPulse. RiverPulse is designed to give you both a clear research role and space to develop new expertise, questions and collaborations as the project progresses. If the position speaks to your research interests, we encourage you to apply.

Assessment

The applicants will be assessed by an expert committee. The committee's mandate is to undertake an assessment of the applicants' qualifications based on the written material presented by the applicants, and the detailed description draw up for the position. A copy of the assessment report will be sent to all applicants.

The applicants who are assessed as best qualified will be called to an interview. The interview should among other things, aim to clarify the applicant’s motivation and personal suitability for the position. A trial lecture may also be held.