PhD Program Cultural Mobility Studies

The world we live in is characterized by an ever mounting degree of cultural, social, and geographical mobility of people, ideas, objects, and commodities. While creating windows of opportunity, mobility also renders personal relations or societies attachments to values more fragile and challenging. The crucial question of where people belong becomes ever more pressing and is articulated in various are- nas of political and cultural debate. Researchers in social and cultural studies support societies and ask important questions to tackle these challenges. As one of the most important instruments to promote cutting-edge research at the University of Vienna, the interdisciplinary Research Platform Mobile Cultures and Societies contributes to the development of mobility studies as an innovative field of research. Founded in 2014 at the Faculty for Philological and Cultural Studies and the Faculty of Social Sciences and prolonged in Nov. 2017 for another three years after an international evaluation process, the Platform offers a focused, consistent research program according to highest international standards. With 7 professors from 7 different dis- ciplines across the humanities (African Studies, American Studies, Cultural Studies, Development Studies, Geography, German Studies/Comparative Literature and Political Science), PhD assistants and cooperating institutions such as the renowned IFK (International Research Center for Cultural Studies), the Austrian UNESCO Commission, and the Center for Mobilities Research and Policy (Philadelphia), the proposed program reflects on and reacts to global processes of socio-cultural diver- sification and draws doctoral students into the orbit of the fledgling field of mobility studies as our research is embedded in international research cooperations across the globe. We are concerned with the relatedness of discourses and practices of mobility and stasis, and in their aesthetic representation across genres, media, and cultural forms. Case studies ask in what ways and to what effect (im)mobilities and their meanings are articulated and negotiated, affirmed, and/or culturally contested. The proposed program is unique in offering a Graduate School model that continually involves a high-profile faculty and international mentors and enables junior researchers to pursue international careers within and beyond academia.

Since the onset of globalization in the 1990s, the world we live in has often been characterized by hypermobility-by an ever mounting degree of cultural, social, and geographical mobility of people, ideas and medial content, objects and commodities. While doubtlessly creating windows of opportunity, mobility also renders personal relations as well as societal cohesion in terms of shared values and beliefs more fragile and challenging. In this context, the question of where people belong, for instance, has become ever more pressing and is articulated in various arenas of political and socio-cultural debate. The research results of the FWF-Doc.Funds program "Cultural Mobility Studies," coming from different disciplines in social and cultural studies, have critically reflected on the complex entanglements of mobilities and immobilities and have asked important questions to tackle these societal and cultural challenges. As one of the most important instruments to promote cutting-edge research at the University of Vienna, the interdisciplinary Research Platform "Mobile Cultures and Societies: Interdisciplinary Studies on Transnational Formations" has hosted the Doc.Funds program and has crucially contributed to the development and dissemination of mobility studies as an innovative field of research at the University of Vienna and beyond. Founded in 2014 and, after successful evaluation, running for a decade until 2024 at the Faculty for Philological and Cultural Studies and the Faculty of Social Sciences, the Platform offered a focused, consistent research program, as well as PhD training according to highest international standards. Together, professors and PhD candidates from seven different disciplines across the humanities (African Studies, American Studies, Cultural Stud-ies, Geography, German Studies, International Development, Political Science), and cooperating institutions such as the renowned IFK (International Research Center for Cultural Studies) and the Austrian UNESCO Commission, our research has been embedded in international cooperations across the globe. We hosted more than a dozen guest lectures, lecture series, and work-shops featuring the leading scholars in the field, organized international conferences and published, besides more than 100 individual publications within the Program, a final edited collection entitled Entangled Future Im/mobilities: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Mobility Studies (transcript 2024), in which professors and PhD students showcased their research collaboratively, discussing the relatedness of discourses and practices of mobility and stasis and in their aesthetic representation across genres, media, and cultural forms that relate to the future of mobility. A number of our PhD students were able to obtain further third-party funding to continue their research and careers, and some of them have moved on to regular positions at different research institutions. Though sometimes methodologically challenging, the working-together of different disciplines successfully enabled us to conduct research in mobility studies beyond the borders of our individual fields.