Research Associate

We are hiring a research assistant/associate for the SSHRC Insight Development Grant-funded project “Confronting Contemporary Eugenics: Resistance and Redefinition” led by Dr.

Audra Mitchell (Laurier) and Dr.

Kelly Fritsch (Carleton).

This position is suitable for early career scholars ( advanced doctoral or recent post-doctoral) with significant experience of qualitative research techniques and ethics , in fields such as: science and technology studies (STS); critical disability studies; sociology and anthropology; human geography; social movement studies; gender, sexuality, and trans studies; Indigenous studies; Black studies; and related fields.

This interdisciplinary project examines transformations not only in the tools and techniques of eugenics in contemporary Canada and the USA, but also the ways that communities targeted by these processes are redefining and critically deploying concepts of (anti-)eugenics. These groups and movements include but are not limited to Black, Indigenous, People of Colour, disabled (including d/Deaf, Mad and neurodivergent) and 2SLGBTQIA+ communities, incarcerated people and other marginalized groups. Specifically, these communities are mobilizing the language and conceptual frameworks of ‘eugenics’ in ways that explicitly highlight structural, systemic, and eliminative forms of violence. They are re-framing definitions of eugenics that are limited to direct biological interventions, highlighting instead a wide range of processes, norms and interventions that erode the social, cultural and community integrity of targeted groups. Rejecting paradigmatic narratives that cast eugenics as relatively rare, episodic and epiphenomenal to state and society, these communities are redefining eugenics as a foundational, systemic, ongoing and constantly transforming feature of contemporary polities, including the settler colonial states of Canada and the USA.

The project will involve an exploratory scoping and knowledge synthesis review of the multi-disciplinary and multi-media sources of this knowledge (including academic work, social media, the arts, and social movement communications).

It will also involve a series of interviews with key informants from academic and community-based networks; and an online speaker series of public talks featuring scholars and community-based knowledge-makers.

Its aims are to map out major discursive formations surrounding changes concepts of eugenics and to track patterns of change in how this framework is being used and transformed by those it affects most intensely.

The successful candidate will be responsible for

• carrying out a scoping/knowledge synthesis review

• planning and undertaking a series of key informant interviews

• developing the REB application and implementing its terms

• supporting the planning and execution of the speaker series

• knowledge mobilization (e.g. co-writing with the PIs, presenting findings at conferences).

The successful candidate will work closely with both Mitchell and Fritsch, and will receive support and training in all of the tasks listed above.

It is anticipated that the successful applicant will have the opportunity to present at one or two national or international conferences and co-author project outputs.