ANU PhD Supplementary Scholarship: Cultures of the Cryosphere

Applications are invited for two PhD scholarships that will work on the Cultures of the Cryosphere: Infrastructures, Politics and Futures of Artificial Cooling project, funded by the ERC Synergy Grant Nr 101118625 (2024–2030) (see the Cryocultures page), and hosted at the School of Sociology at the Australian National University (ANU).

The project investigates the cultural preconditions and consequences of the use of artificial cooling and freezing technologies in nutrition, health and reproduction, air conditioning, data processing, laboratory research and other everyday practices. This interdisciplinary research project aims to investigate the far-reaching socio-ecological effects of this energy-intensive planetary "cryosphere" and aims to identify possible alternatives for a more sustainable future of dealing with artificial cold.

The Cultures of the Cryosphere project consists of four international research groups at the Technical University of Darmstadt, the University of Paderborn, the University of Duisburg-Essen, and the Australian National University, Canberra, as well as three participating project partners at the University of Hamburg, the University of Halle-Wittenberg and the Institute for Social-Ecological Research Frankfurt.

PhD 1: Air conditioning overload: The politics and futures of artificial cooling in urban Australia

This doctoral project will involve a qualitative study of cultural relationships to air conditioning and other technologies of environmental cooling. The PhD will explore the uneven use and accessibility of these technologies in private households, offices, hospitals, schools and recreational facilities, with a focus on conducting fieldwork in Sydney. How do these ‘thermal divides’ between excessive use and lack of availability manifest in relation to class, race and other factors? What alternative practices are being deployed to cope with extreme heat? How are local state actors in architecture, urban planning, public housing and public health reacting to the rising demand for air conditioning and heat shelters in the face of increasing urban heat stress? Using a qualitative and/or ethnographic approach, the PhD candidate will explore the demands, values, attitudes and practices of local residents in relation to artificial cooling, particularly as they are shaped by normative ideas of comfort, health and well-being (Höhne 2022).

PhD 2: Biobanking and cryogenic cultures of reproduction in Mumbai

This doctoral project primarily focuses on tracing the logistics of cryobank supply chains worldwide. The research will involve an ethnographic and/or qualitative study of the infrastructures, practices, norms and cultural contexts of distributing cryopreserved biospecimens or bioresources (such as frozen human embryos, bull sperm or cell lines) across national borders. This may include tracing the circulation of such commodities between cryobanks, public health departments, biolabs, farmers or customers of a fertility treatment, for example. The project will involve theorising the specific forms of value produced by cryobanks (or their ‘cryovalue’ (Friedrich, 2020), particularly as it relates to concepts such as availability, temporality and reproduction. The PhD candidate will engage with key actors and stakeholders to study the technical, logistical and administrative requirements of cryobiological cold chains and their energy demand, including a case study of these logistics in Mumbai, India. Familiarity with India and Indian languages desirable, but not essential.

The PhDs will be supervised by Professor Bronwyn Parry at the ANU together with a team of researchers as appropriate to the specific focus of the PhD project. The successful candidate will be affiliated with the School of Sociology, which sits within the Research School of Social Sciences.

The School of Sociology is a world-class sociology department, ranking #1 in Australia and #19 in the world in 2024. There are 14 staff and strong cohort of PhD candidates are engaged in research on four major research themes:

• Economy, inequality and resistance
• Embodiment, gender and health
• Environment, nature and society
• Technology, media and infrastructures

Applicants are encouraged to contact Professor Bronwyn Parry at bronwyn.parry@anu.edu.auto discuss their research proposal prior to applying.