PhD Position in Mining Mineral Life

Mining Mineral Life: Extracting the Energy Transition in Southeast Asia 

Now Recruiting: Fully Funded 4 year PhD Opportunity at NTU Singapore, including fieldwork and conference funding. 

Open to applicants worldwide, this opportunity welcomes candidates from all academic backgrounds, with those holding at least one degree in the humanities especially encouraged to apply. 

The Project

Mining Mineral Life: Extracting the Energy Transition in Southeast Asia examines how mining for energy transition critical minerals is transforming landscapes and livelihoods in Southeast Asia. The project aims to break new empirical and conceptual ground in the understanding of extraction by integrating geoscience, artisanal knowledges, mineral cosmologies, and histories of critical minerals. At the centre of the project is an interrogation of the category of minerality, the distinction between the bio/geo, and new visions of ‘mineral life.’ 

The School of Humanities and NTU Asian School of the Environment at Nanyang Technological University Singapore, invite applications for a fully funded four-year PhD position under Mining Mineral Life: Extracting the Energy Transition in Southeast Asia, led by Principal Investigator Assistant Professor Dr Adam Bobbette. 

Develop your own research project while contributing to a multidisciplinary research programme spanning research, artistic collaborations and public engagement. 

We ask that candidates propose a research project related to critical mineral extraction in Southeast Asia. Proposals might also engage the following: 

• Political geology: Histories and politics of critical mineral extraction, geological surveys, political geology, and economic geology in Southeast Asia. What is the modern history of critical mineral extraction in Southeast Asia? How have geological surveys shaped the region, including conceptions of state spaces, subterranean realms, and national deep time histories? Is there anything new about energy transition critical mineral extraction or is it an extension of much older imperial dynamics? What is the history of the category of critical minerals in Southeast Asia? 

• Geo-solidarities: Conceptualising and mapping critical mineral commodity chains, displaced volumes, and landscape change. What forms of geo-solidarity might emerge in critical mineral mining sites? What experimental cartographies can bring together social forces, landscape morphology, and mineral trajectories across deep temporal ranges and contemporary renewable energy technologies. 

• Mineral cosmologies: Histories of artisanal mining knowledges, techniques, mineral cosmologies, and craft. What is the history and politics of the distinction between the organic and inorganic in Southeast Asia? What is a decolonial minerality? Are minerals alive? Should the rights of nature be extended to geological materials? 

Application deadline: 15 November 2026 

For application details please click Apply button above.

Contact Assistant Professor Adam Bobbette for enquiries: adam.bobbette@ntu.edu.sg