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Postdoc Position in the WEAVE-SNSF ProjectThe Global Hospital: Reproducing healthcare through entanglements of labour, mobility, and knowledge in Switzerland and Austria (Project Consortium, Dr. Julia Rehsmann, Bern University of Applied Sciences, Prof. Dr. Janina Kehr, University of Vienna, Prof. Dr. Jelena Tosic, University of St.Gallen)

Key information

  • Publication date:21 June 2025
  • Workload:100%
  • Place of work:St.Gallen
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Job summary

The University of St.Gallen is seeking a Postdoc researcher. This role offers an opportunity to engage in impactful research in a supportive environment.

Tasks

  • Conduct research on diasporic and recruitment pathways of hospital workers.
  • Participate in multi-sited ethnography focusing on migration and care.
  • Collaborate with the research team on overarching objectives.

Skills

  • PhD in Social/Cultural anthropology, Sociology, or related field.
  • Experience in qualitative research and ethnographic fieldwork.
  • Proficiency in German and English, plus a post-Yugoslav language.

Is this helpful?

Applicants should submit their full application (in English) including: Letter of Motivation (referring to your qualification for the position and initial research ideas), CV, two writng samples (publications and/or PhD Chapters, at least one publication), and copies of relevant certficates via email to E-Mail schreiben no later than August 15th 2025. The invitaton to job-interviews (zoom) will be sent out before August 25th and the interviews will take place September 8th and 9th 2025. The recruitment process will be completed by mid-September 2025.

Feel free to contact Prof. Dr. Jelena Tosic for more informaton!



Your tasks

Project Description
As key pillars of pandemic response, hospitals revealed both the paramount importance of clinical care in treating patients, but also the crisis hospital institutions and their workers face in changing healthcare systems. Hospitals are central nodes of gendered global care chains where more-than-medical labour and diverse knowledge funds intersect in the everyday reproduction of healthcare. Ongoing precarisation of hospital work, an increasing reliance on migrant labour, and the outsourcing of services and maintenance work render healthcare provision fragile. This project offers a novel conceptualisation of hospitals as gendered, more-than medical spaces of entangled labour (care and maintenance work), mobilities (care work migration, diaspora, international recruitment), and knowledge (in/formal knowledge practices and embodied cultural knowledge). The project combines multi-sited with local hospital ethnography and the funds of knowledge approach, as well as participatory design research. Four subprojects will focus comparatively on hospitals in Switzerland and Austria, as well as the Post-Yugoslav region and Colombia.


Your tasks
The Postdoc researcher will be conducting their research within the Subproject C: Dis/entangling routes of labour: Tracing diasporic and recruitment pathways of hospital workers in collaboration with Prof. Dr. Jelena Tosic at the University of St.Gallen, Switzerland ( School for Humanities and Social Sciences / Migration Studies ). Subproject C zooms in on diasporic and transnational contexts of lives and livelihoods of reproductive hospital workers. The project begins with an initial 4-month-fieldwork phase in Switzerland and Austria, where the Postdoc researcher joins the research teams of subprojects A (Switzerland) and B (Austria). The main multi-sited fieldwork phase (12 months) will employ multi-sited and mobile ethnography to trace diasporic transnational networks, practices, and recruitment pathways of hospital workers to and from their countries of origin – with a particular focus on the post-Yugoslav region (and including a short fieldwork stay in Colombia). This ethnographic focus includes family, friendship, and professional networks (e.g. educational institutions, former hospital workplaces) to reconstruct not only migration regimes and routes of recruitment but also to understand the educational and social resources, funds of knowledge, and culturally informed valuations of care and maintenance labour from diasporic (long-term histories of migration and connection) and transnational (recent labour migration) perspectives. Additionally, subproject C will also look at for-profit labour migration intermediaries (e.g. professional recruitment agencies, temporary staffing firms, and migration brokers) as key drivers of transnational mobility in the healthcare sector.
Subproject C will thereby explore how agencies and hospital workers, institutions and individuals are entangled in various ways (e.g. synergy, competion) as labour and workplace integration brokers. While the postdoctoral researcher will develop their own original research project within Subproject C, led by Prof. Dr. Jelena Tosic, it will be embedded in the pre-defined research framework of the larger collaborative WEAVE-SNSF project. This requires active collaboration with the team and contributions to the overarching research questions and objectives.

Your profile

  • The candidate holds a PhD in Social/Cultural anthropology, Ethnology, Sociology, or a closely related field.
  • They have demonstrated knowledge and experience in qualitative research and (multi-sited) ethnographic fieldwork, preferably (also) in the post-Yugoslav region.
  • Prior engagement with topicsin the field of anthropology of migration – especially with regard to labour and knowledge – is essential, while experience with medical anthropology is considered an asset.
  • To facilitate ethnographic fieldwork in the designated regions, proficiency in German and English is required, as well as competence in a post-Yugoslav language. Knowledge of Spanish is an advantage (basic knowledge is acceptable).
  • The position is open to candidates of all citizenships/nationalities.
  • The position requires residency in St.Gallen, Switzerland (apart from periods of fieldwork and a short guest stay at the University of Vienna), where the Postdoc researcher will actively participate in the work at the Department for Migration Studies.

"A place where knowledge is created" - As one of Europe's leading universities of economics and business administration, the University of St.Gallen (HSG), Switzerland, is committed to the education of over 9800 students. The HSG is one of the largest employers in the region and provides an attractive and innovative environment for more than 3300 researchers, educators and professional staff.


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