PhD position in migration and environmental memory in Eastern Europe (1.0 FTE)

This fully funded PhD at the University of Groningen (NL) is an independent research project titled Where Rivers Speak and Landscapes Remember. The selected candidate will develop and carry out the project under the supervision of Dr. Senka Neuman Stanivukovic, Dr. Ksenia Robbe, and Dr. Florian Lippert. Together, they bring expertise in environmental humanities, memory studies, migration studies and IR, and support collaborative, creative, and interdisciplinary ways of working.

We are looking for a motivated and thoughtful researcher who is excited to explore how landscapes—rivers, forests, mountains—can act as living archives of migration, resistance, and survival. This project invites you to engage closely with stories of displacement and border crossings, particularly in lesser-explored border regions of Eastern Europe or Western Eurasia, and to consider how these experiences are remembered, represented, and inscribed in the landscape itself.

You will work with ethnographic and creative methods, combining scholarly analysis with field-based, artistic, or community-engaged approaches. The position offers space to develop your own trajectory, while contributing to a shared inquiry into how migration struggles are documented, remembered, and narrated beyond conventional archives.

You will join a dynamic research environment grounded in interdisciplinary collaboration, social engagement, and experimental practice. The project is embedded in a broader network of academic, artistic, and activist partners working across regions and disciplines.
We encourage applications from candidates with backgrounds and perspectives that are underrepresented in academia, including those shaped by migration experience, first-generation academic status, racialized or minoritized identities. We value lived experience and community-based knowledge alongside academic achievement.

You do not need to be based in the Netherlands before applying, and knowledge of Dutch is not required for the position.

Project Scope and Expectations
The successful candidate will be encouraged to develop an individual research line within the broader contours of the Where Rivers Speak and Landscapes Remember project. Possible directions may include:

- Studying how traces of migration are embedded in natural environments and border ecologies.
- Investigating how these traces are remembered, interpreted, or mediated through artistic and community-based practices.
- Explore cultural mediations of migration memories and experiences, and potentially also experiment with creating and sharing new archives by means of e.g. sound installations, visual storytelling, participatory mapping, or community-engaged exhibitions.

We particularly welcome applicants who are open to combining academic analysis with creative modes of knowledge production and dissemination.

Responsibilities
- Designing and conducting fieldwork in selected border region(s), using a combination of ethnographic and creative methodologies. This may include participant observation, interviews, analysis of cultural mediations of migration memories, engagement with local communities and mapping of border environments.
- Collecting and analysing diverse research materials, such as poems, oral histories, site-specific commemoration practices and memorials, visual sound recordings, photographs, and community maps, and integrating these into both scholarly and creative forms of analysis.
- Developing artistic or community-engaged outputs that communicate research findings in accessible, reflective, and innovative ways—such as an exhibition, sound pieces, participatory mapping, or visual storytelling.
- Collaborating with academic and non-academic partners, including artists, local communities, and cultural or activist organizations, contributing to knowledge exchange and public engagement.
- Actively participating in team activities, including research meetings, reading groups, workshops, and international conferences, and contributing to a collegial and interdisciplinary research environment.
- Undertaking relevant academic training, including methods courses, seminars, and skills development workshops offered by the Graduate School of the Humanities and other university bodies, to support your research and professional development.
- Producing academic publications and completing a doctoral dissertation (cumulative) within four years, with the support of a supervisory team.

We are looking for candidates who demonstrate the following:

- A completed MA or equivalent degree in anthropology, cultural studies, environmental humanities, migration studies, or a related field.
- Strong interest in migration, memory, and environmental narratives.
- Experience or a demonstrated interest in creative or practice-based research methods.
- Willingness to carry out extended fieldwork and engage with interdisciplinary approaches.
- Good collaborative skills and ability to contribute to team-based research.
- Excellent command of spoken and written English (additional regional languages are a plus).

We are looking for a candidate who meets the following criteria:

- A (research) Master’s degree in a relevant discipline, such as:
o Cultural Studies
o Anthropology / Ethnography
o Visual Studies or Art History
o Cultural Geography
o Environmental Humanities
o Migration Studies
o Memory Studies
o Artistic Research
o Or a related field

- Demonstrated interest or experience in at least one of the following:
o Field-based ethnographic research
o Artistic practices (e.g. sound art, documentary photography, installation, mapping, performance)
o Interdisciplinary or community-based research.

- Strong motivation to work across academic, artistic, and activist contexts.
- Ability to work independently, creatively, and collaboratively within a research team.
- Excellent communication skills in English, both spoken and written.
- Knowledge of Dutch is NOT a requirement
Desirable (but not required):
- Knowledge of or interest in a region of Eastern Europe or Western Eurasia.
- Familiarity with audio, video, or visual documentation and analysis tools.

We offer in accordance with the collective bargaining agreement for Dutch universities:

- A temporary 1.0 FTE appointment for a specified period of four years. The candidate will first be appointed for twelve months. After 11 months, an assessment will take place of the candidate’s results and the progress of the PhD project, in order to decide whether employment will be continued.
- A salary, depending on qualifications and work experience, with a minimum of € 2,901 to a maximum of € 3,707 (salary scale P) gross per month for a full-time position.
- 8% holiday allowance and 8,3% end-of-year bonus.
- Participation in a pension scheme for employees.
- Favourable tax agreements for non-Dutch applicants may be applicable.
- The PhD candidate is expected to conduct 0.4 FTE teaching spread over the second, third and fourth year of their appointment.
- Willingness to move and reside in the Netherlands.