ToR: Reverberations Counter-Atlas

 

Date of call: February 3, 2023

 

Application Deadline for both vacancies – March 10, 2023

 

Two Short-term Vacancies

1 Project Researcher

Digital/Animation Artist

 

Duration of employment: Three months part-time, or on a flexible basis (between April & August 2023

Members of the Reverberations Working Group (under the SSRC funded Transregional Collaboratory on the Indian Ocean) are seeking an experienced researcher, together with a digital/animation artist (with web design & basic programming skills) for an online mapping project entitled the Reverberations Counter-Atlas.

This visualisation tool aims at featuring experimental concepts and methods in exploring transregional flow and connection across the Indian Ocean world. The end goal of the project is to produce an animated digital ´counter-atlas´ that depicts a diversity of concepts, methods, and multimodal approaches that have inspired initiatives that work on transregional im/mobilities, movements and circulations – whether scholarly, artistic, activist, pedagogical, policy-centred, or otherwise.

To this end, we also seek to broaden scholarly and praxis-centred perspectives of notions around reverberation while putting the term in conversation with other frameworks and methods including those of multi-sited ethnography, creolization and memorywork, policy mobilities, tracework, tidalectics, translational sociology, and other ´follow-the-moving target´ and assemblage-related approaches (Marcus 1999; Ingold 2008; DeLoughrey 2009; McCann 2011; Probyn 2014; Tsing 2015; Kabir 2020). The digital space will also serve as a pedagogical tool and as a repository of/for projects experimenting with methods for tracing flow and connectivity, encompassing diverse subjects (e.g., migrant bodies, species, petroleum, policy blueprints, financial capital etc.), spanning the historic and the contemporary.

The newly funded project contains two short-term vacancies. The candidates will largely work remotely, guided by Dr. Rapti Siriwardane (Leibniz-ZMT, Germany), together with other SSRC-funded workgroup members. Here are the requirements:

 1. An experienced researcher familiar with mobility-inspired concepts and methods (part-time/flexible basis, averaging three months)

We invite applications from researchers trained in the environmental humanities and/or the social sciences including visual and design-related disciplines. We also encourage collaboration among doctoral candidates and other postgraduate students who are presently working on themes related to oceanic flows, and/or the mapping of broader mobility-inspired practices. An honorarium of 2,000 USD will be awarded as a lump sum for the part-time assignment expected to end towards September/October 2023. The possibility of a shorter funding extension can be considered, if necessary. The selected candidate will undertake the following roles:

  • Guided desktop research culminating in the creation of a database capturing relevant initiatives/interventions (both methodologically-led as well as oceanic-based), that engage with diverse multimodal methods of representing flow, movement and mobility;
  • A mapping of diverse concepts and methods (based on these archived projects) that are used to trace multiple kinds of flow and im/mobility;
  • Assisting the team in the co-selection of projects that are to be visually featured on the digital counter-atlas designed by an animation/digital artist;
  • Conducting online follow-up interviews with respective initiators/participants of these selected projects on their work, particularly methods-related (we aim to include a diversity of voices including artists, activists, scholars and other kinds of practitioners);
  • Drafting of short texts/blurbs describing the featured initiatives and their distinct modes and ways of exploring and representing diverse flows and im/mobilities;
  • Co-thinking the design of the digital counter-atlas with workgroup members, and in conversation with the project digital/animation artist;
  • General organisation of curated material.
  1. A digital/animation artist with web design & basic programming abilities (part-time basis, duration: average of three months)

 The digital/animation artist will work in synergy with the project researcher. A fee of 2,000 USD will be awarded as a lump sum for the part-time assignment expected to end towards September/October 2023. The possibility of a shorter funding extension can be considered, if necessary. The selected candidate will undertake the following roles/tasks:

  • Co-visualising design elements and website features for the counter-atlas, in concert with the hired project researcher hired and workgroup members;
  • Designing artwork/animation elements to be featured on the site;
  • Developing the back-end programming and website design;
  • Completion of a trail / demo version of the website (for review by WG members) by the 5th of August, 2023.

 

We strongly encourage international applicants from the Indian Ocean region and beyond.

Please send in your cv together with a covering letter to Rapti Siriwardane ([email protected]) and Aarthi Sridhar ([email protected]).

Application deadline for both vacancies – March 10, 2023. Applicants will be interviewed online and selections made by early April, 2023.

As a short-term project, our timelines remain relatively flexible and project work could begin at the discretion of the selected candidates and the project lead. The first demo version is expected to be completed by early August, with additional time for subsequent tweaks/revisions until October 2023.

For further information, please write to [email protected].