ZMO announces the opening of a number of three-year positions for postdoc researchers and a very limited number of doctoral positions for the second phase of the current research programme, conditional on the confirmation of funding. Depending on the development of the programme, an extension of up to three more years may be possible at a later stage.
Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO) in Berlin is an independent research center devoted to a multidisciplinary study on the history, societies and cultures of the Middle East, North and sub-Saharan Africa and South, Southeast and Central Asia from the eighteenth century to the present.
Its main research programme is funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. ZMO hosts international researchers from different disciplinary perspectives. It focuses on investigating social actors’ experiences and perceptions of translocal connections as well as influences and processes of transformation in the above-mentioned regions. In the frame of the current research programme “Muslim Worlds – World of Islam? Concepts, Practices and Crises of the global”, Muslim social actors and their (non-Muslim) neighbours are at the centre of attention.
Research will be organized in the following thematic fields:
Progress and its Discontents studies concepts which aim at a transformation of individual and society, as well as actors who intend to realise them and the semiotic materiality that represents them. Projects that investigate progress as a social project and probe the resistance to, and the negotiation of, its multifarious intellectual, practical and symbolic imprint on culture and politics are welcome here.
The Politics of Resources investigates contested and changing ways of appropriating, accessing and using material resources. We invite actor-centered projects which explore historical and contemporary processes of transformation through which specific matters (land, water, minerals, forest etc.) are valorized/devalued and ‘turned into’ resources, as well as practices that challenge, reject or accommodate these processes.
Trajectories of Lives and Knowledge analyses biographical pathways of individual actors, and how these intersect with education, knowledge and expertise. Projects which closely link intellectual history with the social history of their carriers by investigating the role of knowledge for living within a given social, historical, religious or regional context are intended here.
Cities as Laboratories of Change explores the socio-political dynamics and transformations of urban life, notably the development of new practices and formation of new ideas. Projects focusing on urban development past, present and future, as well as on the problem of the constitution of urbanity with a particular view to the margins and hinterland of cities are particularly welcome.
For further information on ZMO and its research see http://www.zmo.de or contact Dr Nagel at silke.nagel@zmo.de. Applicants should relate their project to one of the four working fields within the overall ZMO programme. Applications should include a CV, a 5-page research project outline (including a working plan with time frame and necessary fieldwork), and a cover letter stating the relevant thematic field. Successful applicants will be expected to reside in Berlin. Working language at ZMO is English. Applications should be sent until August 11th to Dr Silke Nagel at Zentrum Moderner Orient, Kirchweg 33, D-14129 Berlin. Remuneration will be according to Tarifvertrag für den öffentlichen Dienst (TvöD), grade 13; limited funds for archival and field research may be available. Applications should not contain any original materials, as the documents will not be returned.