The University of Gothenburg tackles society’s challenges with diverse knowledge. 56 000 students and 6 600 employees make the university a large and inspiring place to work and study. Strong research and attractive study programmes attract researchers and students from around the world. With new knowledge and new perspectives, the University contributes to a better future.
At the School of Global Studies, research in Social Anthropology is conducted on a host of themes related to the cultural and social phenomena in today’s globalized world. Topics include climate change, migration, religion, gender, cultural heritage, sustainability and consumption, markets, health and indigenous peoples. Traditionally, extended periods of fieldwork and participatory observation have been hallmarks of the discipline. Its research methods explore how the practices and experiences of people’s everyday lives interplay with overarching social processes.
The School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, announces a full-time doctoral position in Social Anthropology with focus on health and medical anthropology.
Medical anthropology examines the social patterns that determine responses to illness and suffering. It investigates the diverse experiences of care and bodily practices that influence health and healing. Medical anthropology encompasses the study of both micro-level factors, such as clinical interactions, and macro-level determinants, including the creation and commodification of biomedical knowledge, as well as structural inequalities in the distribution of essential resources like food, water, healthcare, and infrastructure. These factors facilitate or constrain care, mobility, and existence for both humans and non-humans. The PhD candidate may also examine the intersections between environmental and health issues, challenging the conventional separation of human and non-human health from a more than human perspective.
Proposals may address issues such as global public health interventions and disaster response, health activism, hospital ethnography, health professional education, traditional medicine, community participation and healthcare system change, health and migration, healthcare digitalization, work-place wellbeing, mental health or pharmaceutical markets. Research may also inquire the intersection of human and non-human health engaging critically One Health or Planetary Health frameworks, by addressing care infrastructures, food production, water management, antibiotic resistance, spillover, animal care, and waste disposal.