Postdoctoral Position "Enduring Midlife Love in the Digital Society"

Postdoctoral position “Enduring midlife love in the digital society”

Are you an experienced ethnographer interested in the topics of love and midlife? In mainstream popular culture, love at midlife is usually depicted as a period of crisis, dissatisfaction and decline, a time when romance dies. This postdoctoral project, instead, aims to provide a more nuanced picture by investigating everyday midlife experiences of enduring love in contemporary Western Europe.

Love at midlife: “Is this all?”
In social-scientific research, midlife is seen as a time when people tend to critically reflect on their life’s trajectory and lost alternatives. This reflexivity is associated with ageing and a heightened awareness of mortality. Love, as a crucial realm of self-validation in late modernity, is at the center of these midlife reflections (‘Have I made the right choice?’/‘Is this it?’). Moreover, in the Netherlands, the largest proportion of divorces and separations takes place during midlife, and across the world people report a decline in well-being and happiness around the age of 40. Moving beyond the conceptualization of midlife love as ‘crisis’, this ethnographic project uniquely focuses on daily temporal experiences of enduring love at midlife and how these might express alternative perceptions of a good life. This project will also extend existing research on experiences of love in the digital society, as until now the stage of midlife adulthood has been overlooked.

The choice of specific qualitative methods and the conceptual framework will depend on prior experience and interest of the postdoctoral candidate. However, multimodal and/or sensory ethnographic methods (including for example, digital walkthrough method) are encouraged but not required. Moreover, the target research population is dependent on the candidate’s affinity, language skills and feasibility. Yet, as research on midlife and love in late modern societies often involves experiences of white, secular, middle-class groups, a focus on minority groups including immigrant communities, communities of color, queer communities and/or religious communities is encouraged. Finally, the postdoctoral researcher is invited to consider how processes around enduring love in midlife are shaped by the digital society.

This project is made possible by the UvA’s interdisciplinary Research Priority Area (RPA) project Real Emotions, which is a platform and community for scholars at the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences who seek to advance the interdisciplinary study of emotions as they occur in real life.

What are you going to do
As postdoctoral researcher you will collaborate closely with two members of the Real Emotions project, dr. Rahil Roodsaz working at the department of Anthropology and the PI of the Vidi research project Rhythms of Love, as well as, dr. Sindy Sumter, working at the department of Communication Science and an expert in computer mediated communication and media effects especially in the context of love.

• Your main task as a postdoc will be to carry out a 1-year ethnographic research project within the abovementioned framework, including further developing your own research proposal, data collection and analysis, and co-publication of at least one academic journal article.
• You are expected to present your work at the RPA Real Emotion research events.
• You are expected to live in the Amsterdam area and take active part in team meetings and the research environment at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR).

What do you have to offer
You have:

• a PhD within the social sciences or humanities. Social and cultural anthropology and gender and sexuality studies are preferred academic backgrounds. The degree must have been obtained before the employment starting date;
• excellent oral and written communication skills in English;
• excellent command of (multimodal and/or sensory) ethnographic research methods and the ability and willingness to conduct challenging fieldwork on a sensitive topic;
• independent thinking and critical analytical skills;
• good collaboration skills and the ability to join interdisciplinary academic communities;
• the organizational skills needed to finish the project in one year; e.g. independent and proactive work attitude, good planning and academic writing skills.

You preferably have:

• previous research experience with ethnography of love and intimacy;
• affinity with the field of gender and sexuality studies, love studies, and/or midlife studies;
• affinity with research on emotion in the digital society.

What else do we offer you
The position concerns temporary employment of 30.4 hours per week (0.8 fte) for 12 months. Employment will in principle start on 1 May 2025.

In this department you will work
You will be based at the department of anthropology and within the program group Exploring Diversity: Critical Ethnographies of Belonging and Exclusion. Exploring Diversity investigates the manifold ways gender, race, class, citizenship, religion, and sexuality are made and unmade in everyday life, including the ways in which differences and similarities among people, communities, and other living things are created, contested, celebrated or distrusted.

If this vacancy speaks to you, but you are uncertain whether you meet all requirements, please do get in touch with us or apply. In light of our department’s commitment to a diverse and inclusive working environment, we strongly encourage applications from candidates who come from groups historically disenfranchised by and underrepresented in Dutch academia.

Do you recognize yourself in the job profile? Then we look forward to receiving your application by 16 March 2025 (23.59 Dutch time). You may apply online by using the button below.

Applications should include the following information (all files besides your cv should be submitted in one single pdf):

1. Your application letter describing your qualifications and motivation. Please specify which aspects of the project you are interested in and tell us which factors have brought you to your present focus of scholarly and intellectual interests (2 pages max).
2. Your Curriculum Vitae.
3. A scan of your PhD certificate.
4. Contact information of two academic references (no letters of recommendations at this stage).
5. An example of writing (max 25 pages) that reflects (some of) your qualifications for this position.

Shortlisted candidates will be invited for an interview. Interviews will be held on 2 and 3 April 2025.

For questions about the vacancy, you can contact:

Rahil Roodsaz, r.roodsaz@uva.nl.

No agencies please.

If an ‘Error GBB451’ occurs, please click here for more information and help.

30.4 hours per week

Nieuwe Achtergracht 166