Body, Space, and Care: Philosophical and Literary Interventions in Mental Health Determinants

Research project description

A PhD position is available at the Body and Textualities: authors and subjectivities in construction research group – Department of Philosophy from the Universitat Autònoma Barcelona under the supervision of Begonya Sáez and Carme Font Paz. We are looking for a highly motivated candidate that will investigate how built environments, such as housing or public spaces, shape mental health outcomes, particularly for marginalized communities.

This project adopts a transdisciplinary approach to mental health by examining how physical environments and social determinants of care are represented and theorized in literature and philosophy. It will draw on Michel Foucault’s concepts of biopolitics and care of the self, alongside literary works such as Toni Morrison’s Beloved and postcolonial narratives, to investigate how cultural and material conditions influence mental wellbeing. Crucial to the theoretical development of the project will be references to decolonial narrative practices based on the historical materiality of collective experiences focusing on the body in the Global South.

Intersectorial collaboration will involve partnerships with urban design organizations and mental health advocacy groups. Research will focus on how built environments, such as housing or public spaces, shape mental health outcomes, particularly for marginalized communities. The project will also include co-creating workshops or urban interventions (e.g., public art installations inspired by the research findings) to raise awareness of the social and spatial determinants of mental health. Outputs will include actionable insights for urban planners and recommendations for integrating cultural narratives into policy frameworks. The successful candidate will be enrolled in the PhD Program in Philosophy or PhD Program in English Studies doctoral program at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB) in the framework of the TOUCH project. TOUCH (“Towards the next generatiOn of excellent yoUng doctoral researchers on mental health by developing an intersectoral & transdisciplinary approaCH”) is a new excellent doctoral programme co-funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie (MSCA) Actions of the European Commission and led by the UAB for the recruitment and training of 24 doctoral candidates in the field of mental health and wellbeing.

Academic background / Skills

The candidates must fulfil the following eligibility criteria from the EC: Mobility rule: candidates must not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in Spain for more than 12 months in the 36 months immediately preceding the deadline for the programme call. Experience rule: researchers must be doctoral candidates at the date of recruitment, i.e. not already in possession of a doctoral degree at the deadline of the open calls. Researchers who have successfully defended their doctoral thesis but have not yet formally awarded the doctoral degree will not be considered eligible. Candidates must hold a degree that allows admission to the official doctoral Philosophy programme at UAB or admission to PhD Programme in English Studies.

Additional requirements for a stronger application are:

Candidates must be eligible to conduct research at a PhD level, have a background in philosophy and/or literature and some experience in the field of healthcare either as practitioners, care providers or policy makers.

Interested applicants are encouraged to contact the investigators for further information Carme.Font@uab.cat

Research group/s description

Body and Textualities: authors and subjectivities in construction research group

The body is its representation as a biological, social, and spiritual entity. More than ever, individualities force us to re-formulate ourselves in the space we inhabit. Identity is a place that is mainly articulated as a synergy of gender, ethnicity, class, and sexuality that subjects conform from cultural discourses; the text that results from the bio-political inscription and re-inscription that generates a concept of authorship on a textual platform. It becomes not evidence but an interpretation, a possible (and impossible) reading, that is, an area of ​​debate and discussion that focuses the group’s research activity: the cultural analysis of the body as a generic-sexual construction of the subject, its representations, uses, and meanings in a wide range of verbal and non-verbal textualities, individual and social subjects, human and transhuman beings. We are interested in the body, its internal drive, its biological, social, and human limits..