UiT The Arctic University of Norway has established «The Arctic MSCA-PF program» (uit.no/project/arcticmsca) to recruit excellent young researchers planning to apply for a Marie Skƚodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellowship (MSCA-PF) to pursue a career in research. We invite applications from promising young researchers within the field of Anthropology, Cultural Heritage, Indigenous peoples and Ethnic Minorities. The selected candidate will write a proposal for a 24-month MSCA-PF at UiT together with Associate Professor Richard Fraser. This is an opportunity to accelerate your research career while living in the urban research city of Tromsø, uniquely located at the top of the world surrounded by some of Europe’s last pristine wild nature.

This call is one of 70 from pre-selected supervisors at UiT The Arctic University of Norway through the “Arctic MSCA-PF program”. Successful postdoc candidates will be invited for a three-day MSCA-PF symposium June 4-6, 2024 (hybrid physical/digital event, see details at uit.no/project/arcticmsca/program-structure). At this event, the candidates will present their past research achievements, discuss future plans with their potential supervisor and learn how to write a successful MSCA-PF application. The selected candidates will, jointly with the supervisor, write the MSCA-PF application by the deadline of September 11, 2024.

In this call we search for talented, young researchers within the field of Anthropology and Cultural Heritage as presented by Associate Professor Fraser.:

I am an anthropologist specialising in China, Mongolia, and the Arctic. My research interests span human-environment relationships; cultural heritage and ethnic tourism; indigenous people, ethnic minorities and the state; displacement and resettlement; mining, infrastructure, and resources; and new digitisation technologies. I am currently leading the JPI-CH funded project, “ArcHeritage: Commodification, Identity, and Revitalisation in the Anthropocene”, which explores the commodity chains of three iconic heritage artefacts in the Arctic: reindeer antler, the conical tent, and walrus ivory. I work on China’s role in the Arctic, especially in the context of infrastructure and resource extraction and its impact on indigenous and minority communities, as well as the digitisation of photographs and heritage objects (including 3D scanning) working with several minority museums. I am especially interested in the intersection between cultural heritage and the environment, and the policies and potentials associated with indigenous and ethnic minorities. I also draw upon the expertise of the world-renowned ethnographic film and multimodal tradition at UiT.  I am a Visiting Research Associate at the Arctic Studies Centre of China and head of the Network Project "Heritage making in the Arctic", as part of the Thematic Network on Circumpolar Archives, Folklore and Ethnography (CAFE), funded by UArctic.  

Please send your CV (max 3 pages) and describe a research project that will strengthen and complement the presented research (max 2 pages) to richard.a.fraser@uit.no by Feb 16th 2024. Mark your application "Arctic MSCA". Successful candidates will be contacted in late March 2024.