CAS SEE Rijeka Fellowship

Following the implementation of the previous generations of CAS SEE Fellows starting in 2014, CAS SEE is announcing a new annual Call for Fellowships for Spring/Summer 2019 and Autumn/Winter 2019/2020. This call is organized along selected thematic foci, and the applicants are expected to explicitly select the focus which would fit their research among the presented topics.

The Fellowship Program CAS SEE Rijeka is an international researcher mobility program that offers up to five months residencies in Rijeka and in the countries of the Balkans region (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania). Its intention is to include its organizational scheme and to participate in the network of the 16 other Institutes in Berlin, Bologna, Brussels, Budapest, Cambridge, Delmenhorst, Freiburg, Helsinki, Jerusalem, Lyon, Marseille, Paris, Uppsala, Vienna, Wassenaar, and Zürich. These Institutes for Advanced Study, and among them the Center for Advanced Studies, Southeast Europe in Rijeka, support the focused, self-directed work of outstanding researchers. The fellows benefit from the motivating intellectual and research conditions and from the stimulating environment of a multi-disciplinary and international community of first-rate scholars.

The Fellowships are mainly offered in the fields of the humanities and social sciences but may also be granted to scholars in life and exact sciences, provided that their proposed research project does not require laboratory facilities and that it interfaces with humanities and social sciences.

The Program welcomes applications worldwide from promising young scholars as well as from leading senior researchers whose research is specifically related to the Balkans region. In order to match the Program standards, applicants have to submit a solid and innovative research proposal, to demonstrate the ability to forge beyond disciplinary specialization, to show an international commitment as well as quality publications in high-impact venues.

The CAS SEE Fellowship Program for Spring/Summer 2019 – Autumn/Winter 2019-2020 will host 14 Junior Fellows.

The Call for Applications closes on December 1st, 2018.

The ninth generation of fellows will assume their positions by February 15th 2019, while the tenth generation will assume their positions by September 15th, 2019.

Inspired by the excellent cooperation of the previous generations of CAS SEE Fellows and their work that has created thematic synergies among researchers, CAS SEE Fellowship Spring and Autumn 2019 will stimulate fellows to work on similar topics or different aspects of one particular topic.

Fellows will present their work in Rijeka or other regional centers and will engage more intensively in research in the wider region of South East Europe. They will participate in specific events according to their research interests, while also attending the regular CAS SEE regional conferences and seminars. By implementing flexible regional approach while maintaining the spirit of CAS SEE Collegium, Fellows will be able to pursue their research within wide networks of other scholars and partner institutions in the region perfectly designed to enrich their work.

Topics

This Call is inviting applicants to focus on three particular topics:

Cultures of Rejection: Conditions of Acceptability in Socio-Spatial and Digital Environments in Contemporary Europe

“Cultures of Rejections” aims at a deeper understanding of processes of social polarisation, radicalisation and transformation of everyday life that underpin recent surges in nationalism and right-wing populism in Europe. We term these processes cultures of rejection: practices, discourses and cultural formations based on values, norms and affects which reject immigration, domestic political elites, institutions of civil society and the media, shifting gender relations, and European integration. The working hypothesis of the project posits that cultures of rejection emerge from experiences of change and crisis, and fuel rejection of both the EU and national democratic systems as well as institutions of civil society, threatening social cohesion and peaceful coexistence. The project seeks to test this hypothesis and analyse which dimensions of transformation and crisis are processed in cultures of rejection, and how meaning is ascribed to them inter-subjectively in different environments. The researchers will assess the situation along the 2015 migration route across Sweden, Germany, Austria, Croatia and Serbia, thoroughly examining work places, digital and socio-spatial environments. The socio-cultural research conducted will be complemented with elements of digital ethnography.

We invite scholars in social sciences and humanities whose research interests are related to the topic to submit proposals addressing one or any combination of the following issues:

• How do workers in two industries affected by economic and technological transformation (logistics/transport and retail) reproduce, justify or contradict cultures of rejection in their everyday lives?
• To which experiences of routines, transformation and crisis do employees ascribe meaning via reference to cultures of rejection?
• Which online and offline environments are relevant to the reproduction of cultures of rejection?
• What similarities and differences can account the composition of cultures of rejection in different spaces and places?

Digital Channeling of the Political

It has become commonplace to observe that the digital world has overtaken a majority of social dynamics – it, for instance, appears to be fundamentally transforming the labour market, remaking the protocols of establishing social bonds, empowering the uncanny forces of algorithmic decision-making, and instituting novel and unpredictable forms of public reason-exchange and collective action. In doing this, the digital future presents us with a political reality seemingly unmoored from the traditions according to which we were used to interpret it. Dubious political technologies unsurveyably flourish – the image of reality considered to be required for the establishment of deliberative efforts concerning the shared (and thus political) problems is destabilized, and facts, arguments and persuasion appear somewhat ill-equipped to nurture the common understandings in the environment of memes, deep fakes, doxxing, machinic bias and total informational noise. On top of this new state of our political world, as if in a fever dream, we move towards an environmental crisis of unprecedented gravity.

Researchers are invited to offer analyses and investigations of the ways in which the digital has reshaped the political, and especially of the ways in which the digital can be utilized for the upgrade of the emancipatory capacities of the political in the face of contemporary threats of climate change, totalitarian impulses and deepening social inequalities.

• How could new digital platforms enable collective action in Anthropocene?
• Could we claim that data technologies are disrupting democratic processes, and if so, in which ways?
• The role of coding and algorithms, search engines providing biased information: is Internet influencing our political preferences?
• How to properly understand Facebook as information-exchange system – how to tackle issues of the formation of the echo chamber and the novel forms of news platforms?
• How can we build an information ethics adequate to our growing dependence on data?
• What kind of legal regulations do we need to adequately face the new digital environment?
• What is the right strategy for raising citizens’ awareness of these issues?

Rijeka in Flux

“Rijeka in Flux” is an interdisciplinary research project, combining history, geography, and digital humanities, that seeks to analyze urban change in Rijeka after the Second World War, when it changed sovereignty from Italy to Yugoslavia. The objective of the project is to better understand the impact of the caesura of 1945 on the city, which included border changes as well as the imposition of a new political, ideological and economic system.

Scholars involved in the project are pursuing inquiries into different aspects of urban life in Rijeka, including the relations between the Italian minority and the new authorities and population; the flows of goods, capital, people and information in and out of the city; and urban planning, architecture and memorialization. Scholars employ diverse methodologies, including archival research, oral history, and participant observation. Participating scholars will be sharing the results of their research on an interactive crowd-sourced map: https://rijekafiume.geolive.ca/themap. This map makes it possible to visualize change in the city, and also enables network analysis of the map data. The project is funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Applicants should submit a research proposal that would contribute to the broader “Rijeka in Flux” project research agenda. In addition to carrying out research (32 hours/week), the Fellow will assist with the mapping component of the project, including building relationships with local community organizations, promoting participation by citizen scientists, and assisting in the organization of a symposium in July 2019 (8 hours/week). In the case of a five-month extension of the postdoctoral fellowship, responsibilities may evolve. The Fellow is expected to submit an article to a scholarly, peer-reviewed journal at the end of their five-month fellowship. Applicants should have a PhD in History or in cognate disciplines, and experience working on historical material. They should have working knowledge of either Italian or Croatian.

This Fellowship lasts for five months with the option of renewal for additional five months.

Application and deadline

Applications are submitted by filling the application form at where you will find the detailed information regarding the content of the application, eligibility criteria, selection procedure, etc.

The deadline for application is December 1st, 2018, 12 AM GMT. Late applications will not be considered.

Selection procedure

Administrative pre-selection of applications– Scientific assessment by two international referees– Final selection by the CAS SEE Rijeka Academic boards – Publication of results (January 20th, 2019)

Calendar of actions

• Application deadline → December 1st, 2018
• Publication of CAS SEE Rijeka final selections → January 20th, 2019
• Expecting arrival of Fellows → February 15th, 2019

Eligibility criteria

Degree: At the time of the application, researchers must have a doctoral degree.

Nationality: Researchers from all countries are eligible to apply for the program.

Disciplines: The program is open to all disciplines in the fields of humanities and social sciences. It also welcomes applications from the arts, life and exact sciences provided that:

• the research project does not require any intensive laboratory work
• the research project interfaces with humanities and social sciences
• the applicant has a proven capacity for dialogue with other scientific disciplines

Age: There is no age limit for applying to CAS SEE Rijeka Fellowship Program.

Instructions for filling the application

In order to provide evaluators with relevant information to perform their work efficiently, CAS SEE Rijeka fellowship
applicants have to submit (in English exclusively):
the completed CAS SEE Rijeka application form

• a copy of applicant’s CV
• a description of applicant’s research project (1500-2000 words)
• a personal statement (up to 500 words).

All documents must be submitted as PDF files. The documents of applicant’s research project and personal statement must be
page-numbered and have as a header applicant’s full name (last name, first name) and email address.

Applicants are recommended to specify the following in their proposals:

• The relevance and connections of the research to a wider academic context
• The aims and methods of research
• The current state and schedule of their research
• The cooperation partners, including national and international contacts, when applicable
• The interdisciplinary dimension of the research, if relevant
• The importance of trans-national mobility for achieving research objectives
• Their motivation for participating in the program
• Issues concerning research ethics, if relevant

CAS SEE Rijeka Fellows are invited to spend two to five months in Rijeka in accordance with the length and the complexity of
their research project.

• Living allowance in the range of € 1,100 per month for a fellow
• Possible support for accommodation expenses
• A research budget in accordance with the research proposal