Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Arctic Humanities, Arctic infrastructure studies and GIS

The position

A three-year Postdoctoral Research Fellow position is available at the School of Business and Economics (Handelshøgskolen), UiT The Arctic University of Norway, starting 1 March 2027.

The position is affiliated with the Research Council of Norway Groundbreaking research funded project ROADS – The Roads That Remain: Residual Pathways as Living Archives in Northern Fennoscandia (2026-2030), led by Dr. Tarja Salmela.

We are seeking a researcher with expertise in GIS, spatial analysis, and critical approaches to mapping and infrastructure, and interest towards collaborative, experimental, and community-oriented research methods. The successful candidate will join an interdisciplinary and internationally oriented research team investigating how roads and pathways continue to shape Northern landscapes long after their official purpose has faded, alongside pathways that are less visible in the landscape yet continue to endure through local knowledge, ongoing practices of movement, and memory.

The appointment is for a period of three years, ending 28 February 2030. It is a prerequisite that the applicant can carry out the project over the full course of the employment period. No person may hold more than one fixed term position as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the same institution.

As a Postdoctoral Research Fellow, you will have the opportunity to advance your scientific career and further qualify for academic positions. If you do not already have the educational competence that meets the requirements for an Associate Professor position in Norway, UiT will arrange such competence during the employment period.

The workplace is at UiT in Tromsø. You must be able to start in the position within a reasonable time after receiving the offer.

Tromsø/Romssa serves as an important hub for research, culture, governance, and mobility in the region of Northern Norway and Sápmi. Its position as a regional gateway between coastal, inland, and cross-border northern landscapes makes it a particularly meaningful base for ROADS.

The School of Business and Economics at UiT hosts a growing community of scholars working on sustainability, governance, mobilities, Arctic transformations, and societal change. The successful candidate will become part of a dynamic interdisciplinary environment, including UiT’s Environmental Humanities thematic network that ROADS is closely connected to.

The project/position's field of research

ROADS offers the first systematic study of residual road infrastructures in Northern Fennoscandia—roads and pathways that have fallen out of official purpose but continue to shape landscapes, memories, and mobility practices across the region. These include bypassed roads, abandoned transport corridors, former military and extractive infrastructures, and old roads and seasonal pathways embedded within local and Sámi land-use traditions.

While many remain visible in the landscape, their histories increasingly persist through local knowledge systems that risk disappearing as generations pass. Rather than approaching such infrastructures as obsolete remnants, ROADS conceptualizes them as living archives: material traces through which memory, power, mobility, resistance, and future possibilities continue to unfold.

Drawing on feminist and decolonial Science and Technology Studies, critical infrastructure studies, political ecology, environmental humanities and Indigenous ontologies, ROADS seeks to broaden conventional understandings of infrastructure by integrating relational, seasonal, and more-than human mobility systems into analyses of northern landscapes.

The project combines GIS-based spatial analysis, archival research, ethnography, repeat photography and artistic methods, and collaborative countermapping. It is grounded in close collaboration with local and Sámi communities and culminates in community-responsive public outputs, including a multilingual digital storymap and participatory mapping platform.

While GIS and spatial analysis provide important analytical foundations, ROADS combines these approaches with ethnographic, archival, visual, and artistic methods. The project therefore welcomes applicants interested in methodological experimentation and interdisciplinary research across the social sciences, humanities, environmental sciences, and arts.

The Postdoctoral Research Fellow will play a central role in the project and contribute to both its analytical and public-facing outputs.

The postdoctoral researcher will lead the spatial and archival components of Work Package 1: Tracing the temporal lives of residual and rendered invisible infrastructures and contribute to synthesis and engagement activities in Work Package 3: Reimagining residual road infrastructures and mobilities in Northern Fennoscandia.

Key responsibilities include:

• Conducting GIS-based spatial analysis of residual road infrastructures across Northern Fennoscandia.
• Integrating historical maps, infrastructure records, aerial imagery, and satellite data to identify and visualize infrastructural change over time.
• Developing innovative approaches to critical spatial visualization and mapping that foreground questions of memory, erasure, survivance, and infrastructural power.
• Contributing to archival research and the interpretation of historical infrastructure records.
• Participating in ethnographic fieldwork, collaborative mapping activities, repeat photography, and visual documentation initiatives alongside the Principal Investigator.
• Co-leading participatory countermapping workshops and contributing to the development of a multilingual digital storymap and other public facing outputs.
• Publishing research findings in leading international journals and contributing to conferences, outreach activities, and project dissemination.

The position offers an opportunity to engage with northern landscapes and communities across Northern Fennoscandia in a place-sensitive way. Fieldwork will take place in active collaboration with local and Sámi knowledge holders and cultural institutions. The postdoctoral researcher will contribute to research that is attentive to the diverse histories, experiences, and knowledge systems that shape northern mobility landscapes.

The postdoctoral researcher will work closely with the Principal Investigator while also developing an independent research profile within the broader framework of the project.

Project description requirements

Applicants are asked to submit a project description (3–5 pages) outlining how they would approach the responsibilities of the postdoctoral position outlined above, within ROADS. The description should demonstrate the applicant's understanding of the project's aims and explain how they would contribute to the spatial, archival, and interdisciplinary dimensions of the research. The description must include a progress plan.

Applicants are encouraged to reflect on relevant theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, and analytical strategies, including the use of GIS, spatial analysis, historical sources, participatory mapping, and interdisciplinary collaboration where appropriate. The description should also indicate how the applicant's expertise and research interests would contribute to the project's broader objectives while supporting the development of an independent research profile within the ROADS framework.

Contact

For further information about the position, please contact:

Dr. Tarja Salmela, Principal Investigator, ROADS
email: tarja.t.salmela@uit.no
School of Business and Economics, BFE 
UiT The Arctic University of Norway

Qualifications

• A PhD or equivalent degree in geography, GIScience, human geography, spatial humanities, environmental humanities, infrastructure studies, archaeology, heritage studies, Indigenous studies, anthropology, planning, landscape studies, digital humanities, or another relevant discipline. If you’re at the final stages of your PhD, you may still apply if you have submitted your PhD thesis for doctoral degree evaluation within the application deadline. You must submit the thesis with your application. Documentation of your completed PhD degree must be submitted before commencement.
• Expertise in GIS and spatial analysis.
• Experience working with spatial datasets, historical maps, remote sensing data, or related geospatial materials.
• Strong academic publication record relative to career stage.
• Proficiency in spoken and written English. Nordic applicants can document their capabilities by attaching their high school diploma.
• Ability to work independently while contributing actively to collaborative research environments.

• Skills in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, or a Sámi language are considered an asset. We also value applicants who are motivated to develop language skills relevant to the project's geographical and cultural contexts.
• Experience with critical GIS, participatory mapping, countermapping, or spatial humanities approaches.
• Knowledge of Arctic, Northern, Indigenous, environmental, infrastructure, mobility, landscape, or heritage research.
• Experience integrating qualitative and quantitative spatial methods.
• Skills in visual storytelling, cartographic design, digital heritage, digital humanities, or multimedia research dissemination.
• Experience conducting archival research and working with historical sources.
• Interest in interdisciplinary and creative research methods, including visual, arts-based, or experimental approaches to landscape and infrastructure research.
• Experience working across disciplinary boundaries and integrating spatial, archival, ethnographic, visual, or participatory methods.
• Familiarity with community-based research, collaborative knowledge production, and Indigenous methodologies

ROADS is grounded in long-term collaboration with local and Sámi communities and engages critically with Indigenous knowledge systems and questions of self-determination and cultural heritage. Sámi scholars and other Indigenous scholars, as well as applicants with relevant experience working in Indigenous research contexts, are particularly encouraged to apply. We also encourage applications from researchers whose experiences and perspectives can contribute to the project's commitment to plurality, community engagement, and inclusive knowledge production.

In the assessment the main emphasis will be attached to the submitted works and the project proposal for the qualifying work. Emphasis shall also be attached to experience from popularization/dissemination and academic policy and administrative activity.

During the assessment emphasis will be put on the candidate’s motivation, potential for research, and personal suitability for the position. We are looking for candidates who:

• Have good collaboration skills
• Have good communication and interaction with colleagues and students
• Wants to contribute to a good working environment

At UiT we put emphasis on the quality, relevance and significance of the research work and not on where the work is published, in accordance with the principles of The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA).

Inclusion and diversity

UiT The Arctic University i Norway is working actively to promote equality, gender balance and diversity among employees and students, and to create an inclusive and safe working environment. We believe that inclusion and diversity is a strength, and we want employees with different competencies, professional experience, life experience and perspectives.

If you have a disability, a gap in your CV or immigrant background, we encourage you to tick the box for this in your application. If there are qualified applicants, we invite least one in each group for an interview. If you get the job, we will adapt the working conditions if you need it. Apart from selecting the right candidates, we will only use the information for anonymous statistics.

We offer

The successful candidate will join an internationally connected and intellectually vibrant research environment at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, Handelshøgskolen, and the thematic network of Environmental Humanities at UiT. The successful candidate will become part of an innovative research project addressing pressing questions concerning infrastructure, mobility, cultural heritage, and environmental change in the Arctic.

The position offers:

• The opportunity to contribute to a research project with strong academic and societal relevance.
• Close collaboration with researchers working across Arctic studies, mobility studies, infrastructure studies, environmental humanities, Indigenous studies, heritage research, and critical geography.
• Opportunities for international collaboration, conference participation, publication, and career development.
• Access to GIS and research infrastructure through UiT.
• Significant opportunities to develop a strong academic research profile.
• Good career opportunities 
• Flexible working hours and a state collective pay agreement
• Pension scheme through the state pension fund

Norwegian health policy aims to ensure that everyone, irrespective of their personal finances and where they live, has access to good health and care services of equal standard. As an employee you will become member of the National Insurance Scheme which also include health care services.

More practical information for working and living in Norway can be found here: https://uit.no/staffmobility

Application

Please note that the application will only be assessed based on the information submitted by the application deadline via Jobbnorge. It is therefore important that you include all necessary documents demonstrating your qualifications for the position.

Your application must include:

• Letter of motivation
• Project proposal (3–5 pages)
• Academic CV
• Diplomas and transcripts (all degrees)
• Documentation of English proficiency
• Contact information to 2-3 references
• Documentation of educational competence, if available
• Description of your academic production, stating which works you consider most important
• Publication list
• Academic works, up to ten. The doctoral thesis is regarded as one work.

If you’re at the final stages of your PhD, you may still apply if you have submitted your PhD thesis for doctoral degree evaluation within the application deadline. You must submit the thesis with your application. Documentation of your completed PhD degree must be submitted before commencement.

All documentation to be considered must be in a Scandinavian language or English. If English proficiency is not documented in the application, it must be documented before starting in the position.

Assessment

The applicants will be assessed by an expert committee. The committee's mandate is to undertake an assessment of the applicants' qualifications based on the written material presented by the applicants, and the detailed description draw up for the position. A copy of the assessment report will be sent to all applicants.

The applicants who are assessed as best qualified will be called to an interview. The interview should among other things, aim to clarify the applicant’s motivation and personal suitability for the position. A trial lecture may also be held.

General information

The appointment is made in accordance with State regulations and guidelines at UiT. At our website, you will find more information for applicants.

The remuneration for Postdoctoral research fellow is in accordance with the State salary scale code 1352 with a gross annual salary ranging from NOK 630 000 to 720 000 (in a 100% position). (In special cases, a higher salary may be considered.) A compulsory contribution of 2 % to the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund will be deducted. You will become a member of the Norwegian Public Service Pension Fund, which gives you many benefits in addition to a lifelong pension. Read more about your employee benefits at: spk.no.

The successful candidate must be willing to get involved in the ongoing development of their department and the university as a whole.

UiT wishes to promote gender equality. If two or more applicants are found to be equally qualified, the university will rank applicants from the underrepresented gender ahead of others.

According to the Norwegian Freedom and Information Act (Offentleglova) information about the applicant may be included in the public applicant list, also in cases where the applicant has requested non-disclosure.