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Dr Elisabeth Simbuerger

Now

I finished my PhD in Sociology in March 2009 and worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Warwick until the end of December 2009, developing my research further and disseminating my work through international conference presentations and publications.

Since 1st January 2010 I have been based in Santiago de Chile. In April 2010 I started my new post as a research fellow at the Centro de Politicas Comparadas de Educacion at the Universidad Diego Portales in Santiago where I work on research upon the idea of the university and its discourses in contemporary times as well as on critical approaches towards quality assurance in Higher Education.

My postdoctoral research in the UK was funded by the IAS Early Career Fellowship of the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) and the Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research at the University of Warwick. As part of my postdoctoral research for the Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research, I worked on a joint collaborative research project between the University of Warwick and King’s College London ('The Graduate Pledge'), critically investigating the development of particular graduate capabilities in research intensive higher education institutions. In addition to that, together with Dr. Cath Lambert and Danny Wilding I have been working on the Centre’s 'Reinventing Spaces' project, researching the relationship between space, curriculum and pedagogy in Higher Education.

Before

After having studied for a BA and MA in Sociology at the University of Vienna and the University of Bielefeld (Erasmus year), I worked as a researcher in Vienna at abif - analysis, consulting and interdisciplinary research and SORA - Institute for Social Research and Analysis. I was mainly occupied with applied work and employment studies and evaluations, focusing on disadvantaged groups in the labour market. The pressures of the free research market and the conditions for researchers within it triggered my wish to pursue some further studies in this field.

Life at Warwick

I came to Warwick in autumn 2004 to study for an MA in Comparative Labour Studies. The two research strands I had spent most of my time on – sociology of work and sociology of knowledge – finally provided me with the tools to look at my own discipline and its inhabitants. In autumn 2005 I started my PhD in Sociology at Warwick - 'Against and Beyond - For Sociology. A Study on the Self-Understanding of Sociologists in England'. You can read more about my doctoral research here.

Funding

My PhD research was funded by the Reinvention Centre for Undergraduate Research, based at the Sociology Department in Warwick. I have been working as a researcher for the Reinvention Centre since its foundation in 2005. You can read more about my past and current work with the Reinvention Centre here. 

 

Research interests

  • Social Theory, Sociology of Knowledge
  • Sociology of Education, global developments in Higher Education
  • Sociology of Work
  • New ways of expressing the social - the visual, sound

 

organisation of conferences and workshops

Related to my research interests I have always enjoyed taking part in various activities of the university. I could benefit from being involved with the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, the Centre for Comparative Labour Studies and the Social Theory Centre. Most recently, together with Rodrigo Cordero Vega I organised the British Sociological Association Theory Group conference 'Have we ever been 'post'? Critiques of sociological knowledge' (17th and 18th September 2009) at Warwick. As part of my IAS Early Career Fellowship I organised an interdisciplinary research workshop for PhD students and postdoc researchers - 'Thinking beyond Academia: Alternative Ways of Communicating your Research'. In 2007/2008 I co-organised the postgraduate seminar series within the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender.

I am happy to share and discuss my work, collaborate, and establish contact with scholars working on similar topics. Feel free to contact me: e.a.simbuerger@gmail.com.

 

 

 


 

Elisabeth Simbuerger 

Dr Elisabeth Anna Simbuerger

e dot a dot simbuerger at gmail dot com