Doctoral researcher, Understanding just sustainability transformations from disability perspectives

The Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki invites applications for the position of

DOCTORAL RESEARCHER on Understanding and redefining just sustainability transformations from disability perspectives for a fixed 4-year term starting on 1 Sept. 2025 (or as agreed). Successful candidates are expected to work full-time.

This position is part of an ERC Consolidator Grant awarded to Associate Professor Guido Caniglia (Principal Investigator) for the project: "Whose sustainability? Understanding and redefining just sustainability transformations from disability and queer perspectives" (WEIRD). With an intersectional approach that foregrounds and leverages disability and queer perspectives around environmental sustainability, WEIRD aims to (a) critically appraise the way in which we usually think about sustainability transformations, (b) empirically understand how people with disability and from gender and sexual minorities are enacting and prefiguring alternative, just, and more environmentally sustainable futures, and (c) creatively redefine and generate new theories of justice in sustainability transformations.

RESEARCH

Under the guidance and direction from the Principal Investigator, the doctoral researcher will develop their own line of investigation about a specific field, topic, or approach at the intersection of disability studies and environmental sustainability. The PhD project will engage with issues of justice, sustainability, and transformation from the perspective of people with disabilities. The project will be fully defined in the first months in WEIRD together with the Principal Investigator.

The applicant will be willing to learn how to conduct interdisciplinary (across disciplines) and transdisciplinary research (including non-academic actors). The project may be grounded in a specific field (e.g., transdisciplinary sustainability science, the environmental humanities, and any of the environmental social sciences). At the same time, the applicant will engage with multiple disciplines relevant to understanding and redefining justice, sustainability, and transformations. The project will entail both empirical and theoretical dimensions and relevance.

Centering the experiences of the disability and queer communities, WEIRD embraces an intersectional approach. Thus, the PhD project may also explicitly engage with issues related to coloniality, racism, migration, ethnicity. Non-Western and Indigenous perspectives as well as perspectives from the Global South are particularly welcome.

ACTIVITIES WITHIN WEIRD

The doctoral researcher will engage actively and creatively with the complex inter and transdisciplinary design of the project and will thus:

1. Participate and contribute to organizing team meetings
2. Contribute to scoping, mapping, and collecting initiatives at the disability-environmental intersection, which will become part of the WEIRD Atlas of disability and queer environmental initiatives around environmental sustainability.
3. Contribute to the development of ethical and methodological guidelines for disability and queer (transformative) environmental research.
4. Contribute to the development of pedagogical and training-oriented material about doing transformative sustainability research from disability and queer perspectives.
5. Take care of organizational matters, such as in the preparation and running of projects-workshops and activities.

In addition, the researcher will actively contribute to teaching and administrative tasks in the discipline of Social and Public Policy at the University of Helsinki (up to 5% of their working time annually). It is possible to complete the teaching and administrative tasks in English.

QUALIFICATIONS and ATTRIBUTES

An appointee to the position must hold an MA in one of the following fields: disability studies, transdisciplinary sustainability science, environmental humanities, environmental social sciences. Applicants are invited to check in advance with the Principal Investigator whether their background is suitable for the position. The appointee should apply for and obtain the right for a doctoral degree at the University of Helsinki within the probationary period of six months of their appointment.

Overall, the applicant will have:

1. Experience in qualitative, mixed-methods research (or willingness to strengthen this methodological skill).
2. Capacity to work collaboratively in a diverse and interdisciplinary research group.
3. Ethical sensitivity and competence to work with vulnerable populations and minorities.
4. Excellent English writing skills.
5. Strong organizational skills (e.g., organization and facilitation of workshops).

WHAT WE OFFER

The University of Helsinki is an equal opportunity employer and offers an attractive and diverse workplace with a variety of development opportunities and benefits. The position is available to each applicant interested in the themes of this project. Experience in disability or long-term illness affecting capacity for work is considered an advantage. In the spirit of positive action, we primarily seek to recruit a person with disabilities to this role.

By completing the doctoral research as part of WEIRD, the appointee will have a unique opportunity to interact with many junior and senior researchers and develop disciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary research skills. Furthermore, the appointee will also benefit from the common activities of the interdisciplinary research networks connected to WEIRD at the University of Helsinki (e.g., RESET, INEQ, OBAMA). The appointee will also have the opportunity to closely collaborate with international and local experts in environmental, disability, and queer studies.

The annual gross salary range will be approx. €30,500 – €38,500, depending on the appointee's qualifications and experience. Standard Finnish pension benefits and occupational health care are provided for university employees. Further information can be obtained online. The employment contract will include a probationary period of six months.

Finland is a member of the European Union, has high quality free schooling (also in English) and generous family benefits and healthcare. Finland was recently ranked as the best country in the world for expat families, and Helsinki in the world's top ten most livable cities. Finland and the Helsinki region feature leading research and innovation facilities, clean environment, affordable accommodation, and excellent international, national, and local transport connections.

The chosen applicants are expected to reside in Finland while employed by the University of Helsinki. The Faculty of Social Sciences provides assistance in relocation.

HOW TO APPLY

The University of Helsinki welcomes applicants from a variety of genders, linguistic and cultural backgrounds, and minorities.

Please submit your application, together with the required attachments, through the University of Helsinki Recruitment System via the link "Apply now" ("Hae nyt"). Use your current email address to register to the Recruitment System. Only applicants who are currently employed by the University of Helsinki are requested to submit their application via the link "Employee login". The closing date for applications is February 19, 2025.

Applicants are requested to enclose with their applications the following documents in English:

1. A curriculum vitae that includes all publications and the names, positions and contact details of two referees;
2. A cover letter (max 1 page, 11, single spaced) highlighting their personal motivation of the applicant to be part of WEIRD as well as the capacities and qualities that make them a good fit with the project also in relation to those described above in QUALIFICATIONS AND ATTRIBUTES;
3. A statement (max 2 pages, 11, single spaced, excluded references) about how they would contribute to the development of the intersection of disability and environmental issues in understanding and redefining justice, sustainability, and transformation. The statement should include motivation, theoretical approach, and overarching methodology (including potential empirical research, such as presenting cases or examples). See the section RESEARCH for some more directions.

Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed between the end of February 2025 and early March 2025.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Further information about the positions and the research project may be obtained from Associate Professor Guido Caniglia, guido.caniglia(at)helsinki.fi.

TOPIC AND OBJECTIVES OF THE PROJECT

A major adagio of the Sustainable Development Goals is "Leave no one behind" implying that actions addressing the sustainability challenges of our time should not be only ecologically beneficial, but also emancipatory for the most vulnerable and marginalized. Yet, many vulnerable and marginalized groups are often left behind in sustainability research and actions. Despite the increasing engagement of disabled and queer scholars and societal actors for environmental and climate justice, their voices are rarely considered in research and action on sustainability transformations. Using an inter and transdisciplinary approach, this project aims to understand and redefine the often-neglected contributions of disability and queer scholarship and societal initiatives around sustainability towards new theories, methodologies, and ethics of just and emancipatory sustainability transformations. WEIRD will: (1) overcome the fragmentation of disability and queer scholarship around sustainability; (2) explain how disability and queer societal initiatives contribute to just sustainability transformations by subverting ableistic and cis/heteronormative social norms; (3) develop new theories of emancipatory sustainability transformations that rely on subversive social norms; (4) generate new transformative methodologies in sustainability science; (5) redefine transformative justice for sustainability and the ethics of sustainability science. This project is groundbreaking because it will generate new theories, methodologies and ethics to systematically integrate issues of justice and emancipation in the study of sustainability transformations that are anchored in, but not limited to, disability and queer perspectives. Overall, through the synergistic achievement of all its objectives, WEIRD will enhance the potential of sustainability science to generate new knowledge about and for just sustainability transformations.

APPROACH AND RESEARCH DESIGN OF THE PROJECT

The research design of the project is organized in two main tracks: the first looking at the intersection of environmental sustainability and disability and the second investigating the intersection of environmental sustainability and queer. Both tracks are highly interdisciplinary as it engages in integrated ways with different academic disciplines. WEIRD is situated in the emerging field of transformative and transdisciplinary sustainability science includes approaches, for example, from the environmental humanities, political ecology, philosophy of science, science and technology studies, social-ecological system research and many more. Furthermore, as WEIRD explicitly engages issues of justice, emancipation, and transformation from disability and queer perspectives, it also engages with disability studies, queer studies and gender studies. The project also has transdisciplinary elements as it will involve practitioners, activists, researchers and societal actors from the sustainability, disability and queer communities towards the co-creation of new theories and methodologies.

The two tracks of the project also combine theoretical and empirical elements. The initial and final phases of the project are more theoretical. At the beginning, most work is going to be about scoping and synthesizing existing works at the intersection disability studies and queer studies, respectively, with environmental sustainability. In the final stages, the synthesis and theoretical integration of insights will also require theoretical engagement. The middle phases of the project aim to empirically understand the wide variety of initiatives and experiences that people with disabilities and people from gender and sexual minorities are engaging with to enact, envision, and rethink sustainability transformations that engage with disability and queer justice as well as with environmental sustainability.

The Faculty of Social Sciences is Finland's leading research and education institute in the social sciences, and the country's most diverse social sciences faculty in terms of the range of its disciplines and fields of research. The Faculty has a strong international research profile and an international master's programme, and several of its disciplinary units have been rated among the top 50 in the world. The Faculty has approximately 550 research and teaching staff, and each year it awards some 350 bachelor's degrees, 400 master's degrees and more than 40 doctoral degrees.