SCRIPTS’ Research Units
Four positions for doctoral researchers (E13, 65%) are funded by the Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the Liberal Script” (SCRIPTS), linked to its four respective Research Units (RU): Borders, Orders, (Re-)Allocation and Temporality. Doctoral researchers are expected to participate in regular meetings and events of the Research Units and to contribute to the dissemination of research results through publications and participation in workshops and conferences. Applicants should express their interest in the topics of their preferred Research Unit.
RU Borders looks for doctoral projects concerning challenges to territoriality and citizenship through processes of globalization, regionalization, (de)imperialization, technological change, and other factors (endogenous, exogenous); contestations and transformations of “the liberal border script” and its principles (e.g. national sovereignty, cultural diversity, personal and economic freedom and mobility) in comparative and historical perspective.
RU Orders is interested in doctoral projects on contestations of the liberal order script including state-structures, rights, and political rule. In particular, the RU investigates objections to the notion that democratic procedures produce equality in the capacity of individuals to influence political choices as well as the promotion of exclusionary understandings of human rights. It also examines resistance to institutions of global governance.
RU (Re-) Allocation looks for doctoral projects related to welfare and social security with a focus on the global south, preferably Africa or South Asia; to liberal market economies, (re-)allocation processes (such as progressive taxation) and the creation of inequality; interdependences of inequalities within the liberal market economy; to contestations of the liberal script through a combination of inequalities and other pressures such as climate change, demographic change, and (forced) migration.
The RU Temporality is interested in doctoral projects related to time-related challenges to the liberal script; in challenges to the liberal script from a historical perspective; understandings of temporality and progress and their influence on how actors allocate time to market and non-market activities; tensions between future-oriented values against present-oriented norms with regard to, e.g., work-life-balance.