Salary: £32,862 - £38,795 p.a. inclusive of London Allowance

Fixed Term (36 months): 15^th September 2014 to 14^th September 2017

Vacancy No: 000628

The project ‘Sounding Islam in China’ aims to provide new, ethnographically grounded research into the changing nature of Islamic belief and practice in contemporary China. We argue that a focus on the local production of meaning provides clearer insights into the nature and ideology of religious practice. The project is essentially interdisciplinary in nature, crossing boundaries between ethnomusicology, anthropology, history, religion, and sinology. The approach indicates a fieldwork-based approach to sound, experience and meaning, seeking to move beyond the habitual academic focus on text-based and visual narratives. The project will focus on sounded religious practices, including the call to prayer, Qur’anic recitation, prayers, sermons, life-cycle and calendrical rituals, and other forms of religious expressive culture, encompassing ‘live’ practices and the mediated transmission of religious sounds and ideologies.

A series of questions are core to the enquiry: as new visions of transnational ethics become increasingly dominant in Muslim communities across China, by what channels do these new ideologies flow into China, and what actors take on the role of propagating them?  As the state seeks to orchestrate the Chinese Islamic soundscape, through controls, competitions and campaigns, or by promoting religious practices as ‘intangible cultural heritage’, what changes are occurring in ways of listening to these reconfigured practices? How are practitioners of local forms of Islam responding to the twin pressures from reformists and the state?

We are seeking a post-doctoral research fellow, familiar with approaches in the anthropology of sound, to work independently on a three-year ethnographic study of a defined aspect of Islam in China with the focus on sound as the key medium of enquiry. The successful candidate is likely to have a background in anthropology or ethnomusicology, although other disciplinary expertise will be considered. Applicants should propose a research plan as part of their job application, and should expect to revise and refine it in collaboration with the project leaders.

For an informal discussion of the requirements of these positions please contact Dr Rachel Harris, Senior Lecturer in Ethnomusicology: Email: rh@soas.ac.uk  website: http://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff31068.php

To apply for this vacancy or download a job description, please visit www.soas.ac.uk/jobs.  No agencies.

Closing date: 30 April 2014

Interviews will be held on 2 June 2014

SOAS values diversity and aims to be an equal opportunities employer.