Call for Nominations Director Position

Position

The Max Planck Society invites nominations, including self‑nominations, for the position of Director at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology. The Director will lead a research Department at the Institute and contribute to the Institute’s mission.

Key Themes

The making of norms. How do human communities establish, contest, and transform the rules that govern social life, especially in the context that consensus formation has become challenging? This line of inquiry attends to the procedural and ethical dimensions of social order: mediation of disputes, construction of legal and customary frameworks, negotiation of justice, boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, and moral claims that underpin collective life.

The making of meanings. How do people collectively construct frameworks for understanding their lives—narratives, symbols, values, and interpretations that give shape to experience—especially with the rise of social media and decline of established cultural hegemonies? This line of inquiry attends to the hermeneutic and expressive dimensions of social life: stories that communities tell about themselves, sense‑making practices through which events become intelligible, foundations on which truth claims are made, and cultural forms through which shared realities are constructed and contested.

Qualifications and Expectations

The new Director will have a background either in anthropology or in a related discipline such as qualitative social science, law, media studies or philosophy and have demonstrated a consistent interest in and engagement with anthropology. Ideally, their research will address pressing issues in the twenty‑first century and open new lines or modes of inquiry. Themes, methods, and regional focus are open, but the research must be grounded in empirical investigation and contribute to broader anthropological debates. The successful candidate will also be expected to build collaborations within the Max Planck Society and with leading global research institutions.

About the Institute

The Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology is one of the world’s leading centres for research in socio‑cultural anthropology. This international hub of research, with employees from 50 different countries, is located in Halle (Saale), Germany and closely collaborates with universities in Halle, Leipzig, and Erlangen‑Nuremberg. The Institute is part of the Max Planck Society, an independent non‑governmental, non‑profit association dedicated to fundamental research in the natural sciences, life sciences, social sciences, and humanities.

Equal Opportunity Statement

The Max Planck Society, an equal‑opportunity employer, is firmly committed to diversity and inclusion in all aspects of recruitment and employment. The Max Planck Society especially aims at increasing the number of women as Directors at its Institutes and at eliminating discrimination on the basis of gender. We therefore welcome nominations of individuals from groups that are otherwise underrepresented in leadership positions and particularly encourage nominations of women. In case of equal qualification women will receive preferential consideration, unless legally relevant interests based on personal circumstances prevail.