Paper short abstract:

I am not only a PhD student in Austria myself pursuing an academic career, but one who is studying fellow early career anthropologists in Austria and Denmark, the conditions of their academic training and work as well as their career perspectives.

Paper long abstract:

This panel appeals to me for two reasons: On the one hand as a PhD student (of the University of Vienna) who is himself pursuing an academic career in times of increasing competition, casualization and internationalization within the academic field. On the other hand as a researcher who is studying the current conditions of the academic training and work of early career anthropologists (in a so-called knowledge economy) and their consequences for the career perspectives of early career anthropologists. After having finished a year of fieldwork at the University of Vienna I am currently doing fieldwork for seven months at the University of Copenhagen. I feel that I cannot only contribute my own views when it comes to current career prospects of early career anthropologists, but as well those of other PhDs and Postdocs from these two university contexts that differ very much: one providing training for early stage researchers in the context of an "open access to higher education institutions", while the other one is highly selective in choosing its PhDs.