August 2021

Returning - Not Replicating!

Come the new semester, we as employees at ITU are expected to be returning to our offices after spending close to 1,5 years working from home, or at least under different restrictions of access to our workplace. During this time, the ETHOS Lab has taken the plants home, left our other non-human companions in the Lab, and have tried to continue to maintain community digitally.

Now, we will repopulate the Lab and although the joy of reunification is strong so is the willful hesitance and resistance in returning to “normalcy”.

What does it mean to return when conditions are still in flux? What do we return to when our work lives have become reconfigured into new “normals” sustained over many months?

These reflections are circulating amongst ETHOS Lab community, and we have written a blogpost unfolding some of these thoughts and ideas for gaining more ground as workers.

We are also inviting you to think along with us!

In this newsletter we share a Call for Contribution for a zine, inviting you to share your personal experiences of returning, creative input, or critical scrutiny. We see a great importance in holding space for these reflections, attempting to strategize over how we avoid replicating the conditions of the labour market through the proces of returning.

Returning to ITU, also means that more events will take place in the Lab. On Tuesday the 24th 14.00-16.00, we will host an event of how to apply for an Industrial PhD. Feel free to invite people you think might be interested.

Keep up to date with the lab by subscribing to the newsletter and follow us on twitter, facebook or Instagram.

All the best for your Augusts and hope to see you in the Lab,

ETHOS Lab
www.ethos.itu.dk
Co-heads of Lab: Marisa Cohn & Rachel Douglas-Jones
Lab Manager: Merethe Riggelsen Gjørding

How to Apply for an Industrial PhD

Tuesday 24th of August, 14.00-16.00

Are you considering if an Industrial PhD could be something for you?
ETHOS Lab is hosting an event on the journey of an industrial PhD, were we will give space for experiences and tips on how to apply and work with a project partner. Three speakers will bring in their different experiences and knowledge and there will be time for questions.

Research Consultant at ITU, Lisbeth Breinholt, will talk about the formal aspects regarding applying for an Industrial PhD. PhD and Lead Anthropologist, Mette Marie Vad Karsten, will present her experiences with working with The Danish Institute of Fire and Security Control. Post.Doc at ITU, Sunniva Sandbukt, will present her experiences with finding a project partner and carrying out an Industrial PhD.

We hope to see you there!

Call for Contributions: Reflections Upon Returning

Deadline: 01.12.21 - Submit to merg@itu.dk

ETHOS Lab is currently gathering embodied experiences of returning, of resistance, slow reflections, and sprouting visions. We think of the transitioning as an occasion to transform and would cherish your words and visions on how to build another path.

Your contribution will feature online on our blog and in a physical zine. We welcome creative inputs; poems, drawings, dogmas, and diagrams as well as essays and guides.

Upon Returning - Thinking Transitioning Through the Lens of Transformation

Upon returning to our desks, we are reflecting on which working and everyday life experiences we then are leaving behind. Are there possibilities of bringing in some of that flexibility and priority of the functionally of your foundation – your body and home unit – as norms within the university as a workplace?

Returning will be a laborious endeavor, where we will use a lot of energy and resources in picking up social cues, being in noisy environments, dealing with interruptions, and potentially lose some of the positive consequences some of us have experienced while being and working from home.

Power Through Hashtags Part II: (Dis)Empowered by Hashtags?

Junior Researcher and TA, Casper Frohn, discusses in this blogpost his reflective process of thinking about the power of hashtags (as somehow residing within them for everyone to tap into) to considering power through hashtags (as empowering some, while disempowering others). He reflects on what does our increasing reliance on social media mean for democracy and inequality? Does social media empower the people by allowing us all to partake in agenda-setting? Or is this empowerment an illusion created to hide the seemingly ever-increasing power of dominant groups and private corporations who care more about profit than democracy?

The Adventures of DIY Sustainable Computing

Junior Researcher Luis Landa, share his experiences and reflections upon the technical approach and specificities working with ecological limits in an DIY project. "My hope is that this post will help someone in the future that decides to embark on a project like this or perhaps decides to build on it. So, while this post may have more technicalities attached to it, I aim to present in a way that will convey the human aspect of engaging with sustainable IT and the inner realisations/epiphanies that occur when dealing hands-on with the materiality of websites and servers."

Currently happening...

... PhD Course - Feminist and Decolonial STS: Organised and initiated by PhD students themselves in dialogue with the Lab, they've planned and are now in the process of executing a highly interesting PhD course inviting fellow PhD researchers to an engaged discussion around the trajectory of individual research projects. The course introduce and discuss theoretical foundations that influence feminist and post-colonial perspectives within STS.

We as a Lab are very excited about contributing to this course, and hope the discussions will continue in reside in the Lab space.

PhD & Job Calls

Two Postdoctoral Researchers (3-year positions) in the Biodiverse Anthropocenes transdisciplinary research programme: The University of Oulu, Finland, is seeking two highly motivated postdoctoral researchers with experience and/or a demonstrated interest in environmental change and socio-environmental relations.The researchers will join a new transdisciplinary programme, Biodiverse Anthropocenes, which focuses on human-environment relations and biodiversity dynamics, with a particular orientation towards the Arctic. Deadline: September 20th

Postdoctoral researcher (Postdoc) at Urban Futures Studio & Utrecht University Pathways to Sustainability (1.0 FTE): In this three-year postdoc, you will be working in the Urban Futures Studio in close collaboration with its director prof. dr. Maarten Hajer. You will in explore themes related to futuring, ranging from issues how we imagine the future, to the mobilization of scientific knowledge or rethinking decision making and citizen engagement. You are expected to have an understanding of the role of experts, the science-policy interface and its dilemmas and are interested in collaborating with policy makers and societal groups (transdisciplinarity). Deadline: September 14th

PhD position on Covid-19 contact tracing as public health infrastructure: There is a vacancy for a PhD research fellow on technological and public health dimensions of Covid-19 contact tracing. The position is located inside the CoPol project, which will focus on contact tracing as digital politics across public health, regulatory and technological dimensions. The position is for a period of 3 years.The research project will be located at the Centre for the Study of the Sciences and the Humanities (SVT), which is an interdisciplinary, interfaculty center at the University of Bergen. Deadline: August 29th

Postdoctoral Research Fellow position: There is a vacancy for the position of postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Social Anthropology, as a part of the project "Technoscientific Immortality: A study of Human Futures”, which is funded by the Research Council of Norway’s Program for Groundbreaking Research, running from 2021 until 2025. The position is for a period of three years. We are looking for a creative, independent, and ambitious junior researcher who wants to contribute to a dynamic research program that addresses core issues in contemporary anthropology of the future. Deadline: October 1st

PhD Position on Playing Politics - Platforms: Ambiguity and Escalation: The Leiden University Centre is looking for an excellent, highly motivated, creative and collaborative PhD candidate to join our project Playing Politics: Media Platforms, Making Worlds. Our project analyses how playful affordances of current media platforms have substantially altered the way in which political actors (politicians, citizens and other stakeholders) respond to, promulgate, and frame political issues. Deadline: August 31st

ETHOS LAB Open Hours

Lab TA Mace and Lab Manager Merethe are now in Lab lab during open hours:

Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10.00-14.00.

Come by for a chat, some support on your project, or to work in the space!