The position At The School of Business and Economics at UiT The Arctic University of Norway, ROADS is seeking a highly motivated doctoral researcher interested in questions of mobility, infrastructure, northern landscapes, environmental change, and spatial justice in the Arctic. The successful applicant will become part of an interdisciplinary research team combining geography, environmental humanities, Indigenous studies, critical infrastructure studies, heritage research, and spatial analysis. The PhD position is funded for three years, starting 1 March 2027 and ending 28 February 2030, and is embedded within an international and collaborative research environment. The objective of the position is to complete research training to the level of a doctoral degree. Admission to the PhD programme is a prerequisite for employment, and the programme period starts on commencement of the position. The workplace is at UiT in Tromsø. You must be able to start in the position within a reasonable time after receiving the offer. Working and living in Tromsø Tromsø/Romssa serves as an significant 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 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 PhD project, responsibilities and research methods The PhD Project And Responsibilities The successful candidate will undertake doctoral research mainly within Work Package 2: Mapping Conflict and Relational Mobility in the North. The PhD candidate will take a leading role in the WP and receive close supervision from the Principal Investigator while collaborating with the project's postdoctoral researcher and the project network. The PhD project explores how contemporary road development in Northern Fennoscandia—including infrastructure connected to resource extraction, military activities, and regional development—interacts with older roads, seasonal pathways, and Indigenous and local mobility systems. Rather than treating infrastructure as fixed physical objects, the PhD project investigates roads as dynamic political, cultural, and material assemblages that shape relationships between people, landscapes, governance, and more-than-human worlds. Particular Attention Is Given To Questions Such As
- How do expanding road infrastructures interact with Indigenous and local land use, seasonal mobilities, and relational understandings of landscape?
- How are access, mobility, and territorial authority negotiated between different actors, including local communities, Sámi reindeer herders, planners, governmental agencies, and extractive industries?
- How do roads simultaneously enable, constrain, and transform relationships between people and northern landscapes? The PhD candidate will have the opportunity to shape the detailed direction of the dissertation within the broader aims of the project. Research methods The Project Combines
- Archival research
- GIS and spatial analysis
- Participatory and critical mapping
- Ethnographic fieldwork
- Walking interviews
- Policy analysis
- Visual and spatial storytelling GIS analysis forms an important component of the project, but it is integrated with qualitative, participatory, and community-engaged approaches. The project therefore welcomes applicants interested in combining spatial analysis with ethnographic and critical social science methods. Fieldwork will involve collaboration with local residents, Sámi communities, municipal planners, land users, and other stakeholders across Northern Fennoscandia. Applicants are required to submit a project description (3–5 pages, literature references included) outlining how they would approach the proposed doctoral research within Work Package 2 of ROADS. The project description should demonstrate the applicant's understanding of the aims of ROADS and discuss how they would investigate questions related to infrastructure, mobility, landscape, territorial governance, and Indigenous and local land use in Northern Fennoscandia. While the dissertation is situated within Work Package 2,



applicants are encouraged to develop their own research focus within the overall objectives of the project. The final project description will be developed in cooperation with the supervisor. The description should reflect on relevant theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches appropriate for doctoral research. Applicants are encouraged to discuss how methods such as GIS and spatial analysis, participatory and critical mapping, ethnographic fieldwork, archival and policy analysis, visual methods, and interdisciplinary collaboration could contribute to their proposed research. The proposal does not need to include all of these approaches but should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the methods most appropriate for the applicant's intended doctoral project. Applicants should also indicate how their academic background, research interests, and methodological competencies would contribute to the interdisciplinary research environment of ROADS while supporting the development of an original doctoral dissertation. Contact For further information about the position and the ROADS project, please contact: Dr. Tarja Salmela, Principal Investigator, ROADS School of Business and Economics, BFE UiT The Arctic University of Norway Email: Qualifications Required qualifications
- Applicants must hold a Master's degree equivalent to a Norwegian Master's degree in geography, human geography, Indigenous studies, environmental humanities, archaeology, anthropology, planning, GIScience, landscape studies, political ecology, heritage studies, environmental studies, digital humanities, or another relevant discipline. Qualification with a master’s degree is required before commencement in the position. You may still apply if you are in the final stages of the master’s degree, but the master’s thesis must be submitted for evaluation within the application deadline. You must submit the thesis and transcripts of grades for the master's degree with your application.
- Strong academic performance and collaboration skills.
- Proficiency in spoken and written English. Nordic applicants can document their English capabilities by attaching their high school diploma.
- Demonstrated interest in Arctic, Indigenous, environmental, mobility, infrastructure, or landscape research.
- Ability to work independently while contributing actively to collaborative research. Desired Qualifications
- Archival or historical research.
- GIS and spatial analysis.
- Critical GIS, participatory mapping, or countermapping.
- Qualitative or ethnographic research.
- Indigenous methodologies and community-based research.
- Political ecology, infrastructure studies, environmental humanities, or mobility studies.
- Visual methods, digital storytelling, or creative and arts-based research.
- Skills in Norwegian, Swedish, Finnish, or a Sámi language We also value applicants who are motivated to develop language skills relevant to the project's geographical and cultural contexts. Applicants with backgrounds in geography, archaeology, digital heritage, landscape studies, environmental humanities, Indigenous studies, anthropology, planning, and related disciplines are particularly encouraged to apply. ROADS is grounded in long-term collaboration with local and Sámi communities and engages critically with Indigenous knowledge systems and questions of self-determination …

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