Call for Fellowship Applications, Paderborn University, Project Meaningful Human Control
The interdisciplinary project “Meaningful Human Control - Autonomous Weapon Systems between Regulation and Reflection” (MEHUCO) (https://meaningfulhumancontrol.de/en/) connects five universities in Germany that aim to situate so far unconnected concepts of the controversy around Autonomous Weapon Systems (AWS) in their historical and cultural context, to develop an appropriate concept of socio-material agency and to focus on translation of scientific results into public discourse in order to strengthen civil society debate.
As part of the project, we will invite fellows from the Global South to work with us on achieving the goals of the project. The idea of the fellowship is to include non-Western positions more strongly in the discourse around AWS and to expand the scope of critical reflection on AWS.
Each of the participating universities will invite a fellow to spend 1 month in Germany. Accordingly, we – Jutta Weber and Jens Hälterlein – would like to invite a fellow to come to Paderborn. Our specific aim at Paderborn University is to analyse current military concepts and socio-technical imaginations of autonomous drone swarms and to elucidate implications for human-machine-interaction as well as future forms of warfare. However, fellows may well work on other topics, provided they are related to our research and there is an interest in making substantive connections as well as addressing core issues in the topic of AWS.
We are particularly looking for a scholar with a background in Science & Technology Studies, Media Studies, Cultural Studies, Anthropology or Sociology.
The period of the stay in Paderborn is May 2024. Towards the end of the stay, the fellows of all five universities will reside in Paderborn to enable an interdisciplinary and transnational exchange. Moreover, an international conference on AWS will be held in Paderborn from May 22 to 24, 2024. The conference will include a panel discussion on "Perspectives from the Global South" in which we would like to ask the fellows to participate as discussants.
As output of the fellowship, we envision a report/paper of at least 5000 - 6000 words. We also plan to publish a special issue in a scientific journal relevant to the topic after the conference and we would encourage the fellow to submit a manuscript. (In this case, the submitted manuscript would be equivalent to the output of the fellowship.) In both cases, it would be sufficient to finish the report/paper/manuscript by end of 2024.
The fellowship is remunerated with 5000 Euro. In addition, travel expenses will be covered. We will provide support in arranging accommodation as well as the visa application and other bureaucratic processes.
Please contact us, if you are interested in the fellowship or have any questions: jens.haelterlein@upb.de; jutta.weber@upb.de.
Published: 08/02/2023