The Interdisciplinary Centre for Global South Studies at the University of Tübingen invites applications for 6 doctoral positions (E 13 TV-L, 75%, temporary positions for 4 years) that will form part of the Research Training Group 3105, starting April 1, 2026.
The Research Training Group 3105 takes up the challenge of critically testing the scope of the precarious – and derivatives such as precarity, precariousness, and precarisation – as categories of cultural and social analysis in the Global South. Grounded in an interdisciplinary approach at the crossroads of transregional studies on Asia, Africa, and Latin America, we aim to examine the social and cultural production of the precarious within broader dynamics of interdependence. RTG investigates how individual and collective social actors perceive and interpret everyday situations, social conditions, and interactional scenarios as precarious. Additionally, it focuses on the cultural references they draw upon to make sense of precarity as well as the tactics, strategies, navigational capacities, and repertoires of resistance they mobilize to deal with the precariousness of their existence and the precarisation of their living conditions.
The RTG builds on a high degree of international interconnectedness with partner universities in the Global South and encourage our doctoral researchers to look beyond the conventional subject areas of their disciplines. The research activities will be organised in five thematic plateaus that explore specific fields of struggle in the Global South, wherein disputes over the precarious are particularly productive in a social, cultural or political sense:
Plateau 1: Mediating Precarity
Plateau 2: Contesting Politics of Precarity
Plateau 3: Territorialising Precarity
Plateau 4: Facing Ecoprecarity
Plateau 5: Embodying Precarity
For further information please consult the website: https://uni-tuebingen.de/de/283122
Application documents:
Proposal for a PhD project (8-10 pages, in English)
Motivation letter (2-3 pages, in English)
Academic curriculum vitae (in English)
Master’s certificate (or equivalent) and Transcript of Records
Master’s thesis and relevant academic publications
2 letters of recommendation by scholars in your field of study
Please hand in your application via e-mail by September 15, 2025, to sekretariat.ibero@romanistik.uni-tuebingen.de. Attachments should be in pdf only and not exceed 10MB.
For further details on application requirements, visit https://uni-tuebingen.de/en/forschung/forschungsschwerpunkte/graduiertenkollegs/grk-figurationen-des-prekaeren-im-globalen-sueden/call-for-applications/