2022-2023_3_75 Predoctoral fellow position in ERC Consolidator Grant on Comparative Literature, Sea Narratives and Environmental Criminality

Pre-doctoral position for the ERC CoG 2021 project: Ocean Crime Narratives: A Polyhedral Assessment of Contemporary Sea Narratives on Environmental Harm and Crime (1982-present) OCN, led by PI Dr. Marta Puxan-Oliva at the Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB), located in Mallorca.

This is a 4-year position, from 1/05/2023 to 30/04/2027 where the fellow will have to complete a PhD dissertation on the preselected literary corpus of the project. The corpus is multilingual and will be studied from a comparative literature and narratological perspective. This research will be part of the interdisciplinary project that increasingly adds analysis of other scientific and legal texts. The candidate should be interested in interdisciplinary work, especially in the humanities and social sciences. The project involves research on literature and film studies, public international law and green criminology, political ecology, and oceanography.

Here is the project summary:

“With the latest international Law of the Sea (UNCLOS 1982), narratives on environmental crimes and harms at sea have changed their views of ocean governance, sustainability, and human rights, and are now shaping an international, hegemonic discourse. A growing, under-examined corpus of contemporary literary and filmic narratives discusses environmental criminality at sea as subject to contested international and state jurisdiction, harmful to oceanic sustainability and threatening human rights, and uncertainly poised between crime and harm. Literature and film are only part of the discourse around environmental crime at sea, since policymakers, lawyers and scientists are its main producers. How do discourses in the cultural and scientific realms co-create conceptions, arguments and ideas that underpin the actual international regulations and policy negotiations around environmental crime and harm at sea? OCNresponds to this new challenge with three objectives: 1) to analyze the narratives around environmental crime and harm at sea in a new, hitherto unexamined corpus of post-1982 literature and film; 2) to conduct a novel narrative analysis of environmental sea crime and harm discourses aiming for dissemination and governance from the perspective of oceanography, green criminology, and political ecology; 3) to produce a polyhedral assessment of hegemonic, international discourse on environmental crime and harm at sea today. OCN examines a post-1982 corpus of literary, filmic and expert narratives dealing with three areas of harm and crime: a) exploitation of biological and mineral marine resources; b) toxic waste and plastic dumping; c) harmful climate-change effects on oceanic ecosystems. The project tests an interdisciplinary analysis of discursive practices to provide a fresher, critical view of hegemonic, international environmental crime discourses at sea, which determine definitions of criminality and aim to safeguard the future sustainability of our oceans.”

We are seeking dynamic, creative and participative candidates, who are really interested in the project’s topic and would be engaged in eager dialogue and conversation, as well as with an interest to work at an international, high-quality level.

PI: Dr. Marta Puxan Oliva

Institution: Universitat de les Illes Balears (UIB) / University of Balearic Islands (UIB)