PhD project "Functioning Democracies Water's Edge

PhD Candidates for the Project "Functioning Democracies at the Water's Edge"

The German Maritime Museum – Leibniz Institute for Maritime History (DSM) is one of eight research museums within the Leibniz Association. Its exhibition and research program focuses on the study of maritime technologies and the relationship between humanity and the sea. With a workforce of around 100 employees and trainees, and approximately 8,000 square meters of exhibition space, it ranks among the largest maritime museums in Europe.

To strengthen our team, we are seeking two PhD candidates to start from the 1st of January 2027 for four years.

Funded by the Volkswagen Foundation 0202634 the project "Functioning Democracies at the Water's Edge" the project analyses the effects of global transformations in harbour cities on political participation. The main working base will be the German Maritime Museum/ Leibniz-Institute for Maritime History.

The first PhD-position to be filled in is based within the field of Maritime History at the juncture to Memory and Museum Studies. The project examines how maritime museums narrate colonial, labour, and democratic histories across four institutions — the German Maritime Museum (Bremerhaven), Namibia Maritime Museum (Lüderitz), Museo Marítimo Nacional (Valparaíso), and National Museum of Singapore. Through exhibitions, archival collections, and museum objects, the PhD researcher analyses the interdependencies between political memory and civic space — revealing gaps between formal institutional recognition and lived democratic experience, and tracing how policies of visibility and representation reflect global interests at work in different harbour cities.

The PhD will be based in the field of Maritime History at the University of Bremen, with strong connections to Memory and Museum Studies, Material Culture, Ethnology, and/or Political Sciences.

The second PhD-position investigates democratic practices emerging from everyday struggles over recognition, rights, and functioning citizenship. Participant observation, interviews, and oral histories follow workers, migrants, and civic actors across the four case study cities.

The main objective of this PhD project is to link very concretely the challenges of global economies and ecologies to processes of migration, labour (ab) use, and the effects of technical innovations. It is supposed to work closely together with the ITF Trust in order to deliver data and knowledge which might be useful to both address the public as well as political stakeholders more efficiently about the needs and state of seafaring people and harbour workers.

On the other hand it will deliver differentiated knowledge about the entanglements between different aspects of globalisation and political culture in general. This WP not only uses ethnographic methods and oral history, but also the observation and integration of key questions within artistic practices.

The PhD will be based within maritime anthropology or postcolonial studies with a strong affinity to interdisciplinary fieldwork. Extended fieldwork abroad — approximately four months per city — is central to the methodology. The supervision will take place within the University of Hamburg and the DSM.

Both PhD projects have in common that they are internationally orientated and include the key work of communication within the research group and within the network of cooperation partners. Candidates should not only be excellent within their respective disciplines but should also feel a strong interest in inter- and transdisciplinary work. Ideally they are multilingual — at minimum fluent in two of the project languages:
English, German, Spanish, Afrikaans, indigenous languages, Mandarin, Malay, or Tamil. They should feel a close affinity to using different software and digital solutions, and regard museum and public transfer work as an integral part of their research.

What We Offer

• Flat hierarchies and quick decision-making processes
• Flexible work hours and remote work options
• 30 days of annual leave (based on a 5-day workweek)
• Company pension plan
• Employee benefits

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