Asia Research Institute
Singapore
Deadline: 1 September 2011
Applications are invited for Senior Research Fellowships, One-Year Visiting (Senior) Research Fellowships and Postdoctoral Fellowships at the Asia Research Institute (ARI) for commencement between April 2012 and September 2012.
The positions are intended for outstanding active researchers from around the world, to work on an important piece of research in the social sciences and humanities. Interdisciplinary interests are encouraged. Up to three months of a 12-month fellowship may be spent conducting fieldwork in the Asian region.
A majority of the positions will be allocated to the more specific areas listed below. However some will be reserved for outstanding projects in any area outside of those listed. Applicants should mention which category they are applying to or if none, indicate “open category”. Applications which link more than one field are also welcome.
TERMS AND CONDITIONS
(Senior) Research Fellowships
* The appointment will be tenable for a period of two years at the first instance, with the possibility of extension for another term of two years (ie. up to a total of a four-year term). Interested applicants should have at least a PhD with a few years of postdoctoral research experience.
* The fellowship comes with a competitive remuneration and benefits package, depending on seniority.
* Support for research and fieldwork, and conference attendance (on application and subject to approval).
One-Year Visiting (Senior) Research Fellowship
* The appointment will have a normative tenure of one year, though shorter periods may be negotiated. Interested applicants should have at least a PhD with a few years of postdoctoral research experience.
* The fellowship comes with a competitive remuneration and benefits package depending on seniority.
Postdoctoral Fellowships
* Contract is tenable for a period of one year in the first instance with a possibility of extension to two years.
* An all-inclusive and a fixed monthly salary of S$4,000 and a monthly housing allowance of S$500 will be provided (applicable to non-Singaporeans only).
* Support for research and fieldwork, and conference attendance (on application and subject to approval).
* Candidates must have fulfilled all requirements of the PhD within the last 2 years. If you are a PhD candidate at the point of application, you may also apply provided that you are confirmed for graduation between April to September 2012. A letter from your university will be required to confirm that you have successfully completed all degree requirements for the conferment of a PhD degree before your proposed start date.
The benefits that the University provides and other information about working in NUS and living in Singapore are available at http://www.nus.edu.sg/careers/potentialhires/index.html. Terms and conditions, according to university guidelines, are subject to changes without prior notice.
AREAS OF RESEARCH FOCUS
Asian Migration
The Asian Migration cluster explores the issues arising from increased levels of human mobility in the region, both within and across national borders. Mobility of high-level professional and managerial personnel, unskilled labour migration (both documented and undocumented) and human trafficking all raise methodological and theoretical questions, and major policy issues, as does the role of migration in urban change.
Within this larger frame, the current focus for the cluster prioritises Transnational Migration and Global Cities. This research theme draws attention to the material processes and discourses of globalisation and transnationalism as they intersect in Asian cities. It includes transnational flows (including both ‘migration’ and ‘return migration’) of the skilled, professional, managerial and entrepreneurial elites to the low-waged contract migrant workers filling unskilled and low-skilled niches in the urban economy (other groups include students and ‘middling transnationals’), and examines questions of transnational-local tensions, societal faultlines and fissures, spatial politics, social, economic and political integration, and the management of the ‘multicultural’, ‘cosmopolitan’ and/or ‘creative’ cities.
Asian Urbanisms
The Asian Urbanisms cluster examines Asia’s urban diversity. In addition to empirical analysis of urban forms, phenomena and experiences, the cluster seeks to take regional urban diversity as a resource for wider theorisation. The theoretical orientation of the cluster is towards research which: (1) speaks in transformative ways to urban studies debates beyond Asian area studies; and (2) resists the ingrained impulse to refer back to antecedents in North America or Western Europe. Of particular interest are forms of relational, comparative research which de-centre the West as the supposed leading edge of urban transition, innovation and influence. Avenues for such work include (but are not limited to): intra-Asia city models and emulation; sustainability and urban lifestyles; natural disasters, conflict and urban resilience; multisensory experiences of the city; cyber-urban institutions and social movements; and religion-related urbanisms.
Changing Family in Asia
The Changing Family in Asia Cluster explores the dimensions of family change in the region, their causes and implications. These dimensions include rising ages at marriage and decreasing non-marriage, declining fertility and declining size of the nuclear family, increase in one-person households and alternative family forms, changing gender roles within families, and changes in family structures consequent on population ageing. These dimensions of family change have implications for gender relations, inter-generational relations, the life patterns of the post-adolescent unmarried, the role of the elderly in the family, child-raising patterns and social policy. Increasing cross-border marriage and transnational householding also raise policy issues at both national and international levels.
Cultural Studies in Asia
Cultural Studies in Asia is a field of academic research which challenges conventional disciplinary boundaries to rethink received knowledge on existing issues and/or to address new topics and concerns thrown up by the rapid changes and impact on cultural practices, brought about by new technologies and the new phase of global capitalism. Focusing on the popular cultural practices in contemporary Asia, practitioners in Cultural Studies have reexamined these practices from new angles engendered by multidisciplinary perspectives. They have questioned the very idea of Asia and its current reconfiguration in view of the intense traffic of cultural products and cultural practices, crisscrossing national and cultural boundaries within the continent and beyond. The Cultural Studies in Asia programme at ARI seek to add scholarly research and publishing to this emerging field by hosting outstanding researchers, workshops, conferences and publications.
Religion and Globalisation in Asian Contexts
The Religion and Globalisation cluster is dedicated to exploring global reconfigurations of religion and its diverse manifestations in Asian contexts. Our work focuses on the dynamic interactions of secularisation and religious revival in the modern period, as well as to related issues of authority and tradition in contemporary religious discourse and practice. The Cluster’s research deals with major established religions such as Buddhism, Christianity and Islam, as well as new religious movements in all parts of Asia, broadly conceived. The Cluster’s wide range of research projects is organised around a shared commitment to critically examine the diverse ways in which processes of modernisation and globalisation have re-framed the ways in which religion is experienced and understood in contemporary Asia.
In our work we strive to move beyond established paradigms of secularisation developed for discussions of modern Europe to engage in more meaningful and nuanced ways with the different historical trajectories of religious developments in Asia. This line of approach is reflected in such cluster events as recent workshops on ‘Secularisation, Religion and the State’ (co-organised with the University of Tokyo) and ‘Proselytisation and the Limits of Pluralism in Contemporary Asia’. Over the coming year the cluster will continue its work on issues of religion, law and society while also expanding into new areas including studies of religion and NGOs.
Science, Technology, and Society
The Science, Technology, and Society (STS) cluster studies the inter-relationships between those three domains, especially in the context of Asia. STS is a research programme which began in the late 1960s, and is now conducted at more than a hundred institutions around the world. NUS has one of the largest concentration of faculty in Asia researching STS themes, and working on both global and regional scales. Some of our strengths lie in the history and philosophy of science and technology, interactive and digital media studies, the social and cultural study of biotechnology and biomedicine, and urban technologies, although we are not restricted to these interests. We are grant-active and our largest single project, “Asian Biopoleis: Biotechnology and Bioscience as Emergent forms of Life and Practice” will engage a dozen collaborators through 2013, including staff at A*STAR, and at overseas institutions such as MIT and JNU. We work in close cooperation with the STS research cluster in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Tembusu College at NUS, and individual researchers in most other NUS faculties.
Open Cluster
While any research institute must focus its work on certain particular frontiers on which it hopes to make a difference, ARI has also kept its doors open to talented people, exciting ideas and worthwhile projects across the whole spectrum of the social sciences. Many of our most exciting visitors have been in what we call the ‘open’ cluster, to ensure this openness to ideas remains.
ABOUT THE ASIA RESEARCH INSTITUTE (ARI)
The Asia Research Institute (ARI) was established as a university-level institute in July 2001 as one of the strategic initiatives of the National University of Singapore (NUS). It aims to provide a world-class focus and resource for research on the Asian region, located at one of its communication hubs. ARI engages the social sciences broadly defined, and especially interdisciplinary frontiers between and beyond disciplines. Through frequent provision of short-term research appointments it seeks to be a place of encounters between the region and the world. Within NUS it works particularly with the Faculties of Arts and Social Sciences, Business, Law and Design, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and other Asian institutes to support conferences, lectures, and graduate study at the highest level.
Home to a strong team of full-time researchers, the ARI provides support for doctoral and postdoctoral research, conferences, workshops, seminars, and study groups. It welcomes visiting scholars who wish to conduct their research on Asia in Singapore, and encourages collaboration with other Asian research institutes worldwide.
INVITATION TO APPLY
Interested applicants are invited to email/post their applications, consisting of:
* Application form (please click here to download the application form)
* Curriculum Vitae;
* Synopsis of the proposed research project (no restriction on the number of pages);
* At least one sample of published work;
* Ensure that a minimum of three letters of reference are sent to us in confidence via email or post reporting on the applicant’s academic standing and on the applicant’s research project by 1 September 2011.
Closing date for applications is 1 September 2011.
To note for applications via email:
* You will receive an auto-reply acknowledging receipt of your email/application.
* If you have already sent in your application via email, kindly do not send the same application via post and vice versa. However, if you wish to send in hard copies of your sample publication(s) you may do so via post but indicate in your email application that the sample publication(s) will be sent via post. Please note that sample publication(s) will not be returned.
* Please keep your email and attachments below 10MB by zipping any large files as emails larger than 10MB will be rejected by our email system.
We regret that only successful candidates will be notified (via email). Candidates who do not hear from the University within 10 weeks after closing date of the advertisement may assume the position has been filled.
Address for submission of applications, reference letters and/or queries:
1. Email: joinari@nus.edu.sg
OR
2. Human Resources
Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore
469A Tower Block
Bukit Timah Road #10-01
Singapore 259770
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