PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology (Health and Environment): "Youth mental health and gambling epidemics in times of environmental crisis (East-Africa)"

The Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at KU Leuven University is a vibrant community of 8 lecturers, 12 postdoctoral scholars, and 40 PhD students.
The research at the Department is clustered around three axes: "making", "living" and "moving" around the world. The department faculty are committed to long-term ethnographic research in order to gain an in-depth understanding of how individuals and groups organize their lives, relate to pasts and prefigure futures.

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Project

The Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Leuven (KULeuven), in collaboration with Makerere University (MU), invites applications for one fully-funded 3-year PhD fellowship in social and cultural anthropology starting on 1 September 2026. The positions are funded by the EU Research and Innovation program Horizon Europe, under a grant by Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Doctoral Networks (MSCA-DN). The successful candidates must commence their PhD degree program on 1 September 2026.

Background HEALENAE:

KULeuven and MU have embarked on the collaborative project HEALENAE: Health and Environment in Africa and Europe run by a consortium of universities: in Aarhus (Denmark), Cape Town (South Africa), Edinburgh (UK), Leuven (Belgium), Nairobi (Kenya), and Oslo (Norway) and Makerere University (Uganda).

The HEALENAE Doctoral Network offers a cross-continental, innovative, interdisciplinary, and multi-sectoral anthropological approach to pressing, interrelated health and environmental challenges across contemporary Africa and Europe. HEALENAE seeks to develop a strong interdisciplinary network that is based in anthropology, global one health, environmental and regional studies, to examine connections, correspondences and new challenges for health and environmental contexts in and between Africa and Europe.

By exploring specific topic areas of health and environment through long-term anthropological fieldwork, the research will provide insights into, and enable the future mitigations of, challenges related to current demographic, disease, climate and environmental changes, accelerated urbanisation, uneven growth, refugee issues, and gender and generational dynamics. The HEALENAE Doctoral Candidates will collaborate across projects to bring together insights anchored in different sectors and countries. They will analyse these in relation to each other creating clarity of interlinkages between specific health and environmental domains in an intercontinental perspective. Together, approaches from anthropology, post-colonial and regional studies on health and environment offer unique research perspectives and methods providing grounded, bottom-up understandings of how environments and health issues play out in everyday settings.

The research network offers an academically stimulating and interdisciplinary working environment, an innovative training program that allows the PhD fellows to obtain specialist knowledge on a specific research topic as well as transferable skills that can be employed in academic as well as non-academic institutions. The HEALENAE PhD education includes one year of fieldwork in Africa and/or Europe (in total), annual training schools and writing retreats and 6 months stay with the secondary university. HEALENAE also offers an attractive salary, the opportunity of favourable pension benefits as well as funding for research, travel, conference participation and dissemination, books and equipment.

The HEALENAE project strives equal opportunity for diversity among the DCs. We encourage candidates from all continents, applicants with disabilities and minorities to apply. The salary will include social security and be composed of living and mobility allowances and a family allowance where appropriate, as outlined in the table on p.118 of the MSCA Work program 2023-2025: wp-2-msca-actions_horizon-2023-2024_en.pdf

Aim: To study different endemic forms of gambling (online and offline) among youth (sports betting, crypto trade, online money games, lottery, fortune-telling) in an East African context and links to crises in the (social, economic, technological, natural) environment.

Objectives:

1: To explore and identify different offline and online forms of gambling among youth in an African country;2: To study the historical situatedness of gambling and probability practices, from in-situ games and fortune-telling to (online) betting and crypto market transactions and current changes in these;3: To study relations between increased insecure environmental conditions of everyday lives of the youth in relation to gambling practices; to study gambling as (perceived) ways of securing uncertain future lives;4: To study how people deal with risk and uncertainty related to the environment in a post-colonial context.

Expected Results:

This study will contribute to a better understanding of the impact of the current gambling boom on young people and their mental health condition in African urban centres. It will map various gambling practices to provide a better overview of the nature and prevalence of practices, their distribution and some of its root causes. It will generate in-depth, gendered, and locally specific knowledge on the social, political, economic, and cultural dimensions of gambling, and as such contribute to in-depth knowledge of the recent explosion of online gambling and its impact on mental health. The study will enable a deeper understanding of the intertwinement between gambling and the environmental crisis and how it relates to youth’s perception of their own uncertain futures. This will contribute to knowledge on how people deal with risk and uncertainty in a post-colonial context, and it will facilitate prevention of ludomania and impact mental health conditions among youth.

Planned Secondment:

1. MU, one semester, to engage in another academic environment and get face to face supervision from co-supervisor Stella Neema;

2: During fieldwork, the DC may also spend time with an NGO like Hope for Future Generations – or another NGO working in the study area.

Profile

Eligible candidates must have an internationally recognised Master’s or an equivalent degree in anthropology or related social sciences and humanities disciplines. They must have received their Master’s degree or equivalent (120 ECTS) no later than 31 August 2026. They must have less than four years of research experience after their Master’s degree and not hold a PhD degree. All applicants must have achieved a high grade point average in their Bachelor and Master’s studies and must have fluent oral and written communication skills in English and submit their dissertation in English. All applicants must document English language qualifications (see the formal requirements here: https://www.kuleuven.be/english/study/apply/language-requirements/english-proficiency-tests).

Applicants can be of any nationality. We encourage applicants who have African language skills and relevant experience outside the academy. However, in order to be eligible, candidates have not resided more than 12 of the last 36 months in Belgium before the recruitment date.

The Doctoral Candidate is required to spend time at each university, have a supervisor at each institution and will receive a dual degree issued by each university.

The Doctoral Candidate is expected to take part in the HEALENAE dual degree PhD program and to complete the project within the set fellowship period. Since the doctoral student will receive a dual degree, his/her research project will be subject to an evaluation meeting according to the standards of both Makerere University and University of Leuven. The format of the evaluation will be a public defence at KULeuven and a viva at MU.

The details regarding time spent at each university, supervision, evaluation as well as other legal matters will be specified in a contract prior to the start of the PhD project.

At MU, the candidate will be hosted at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, that hosts a PhD program in social sciences, including anthropology. The department is putting in place a PhD program in Anthropology starting in 2025. PhD students also attend cross-cutting courses organised by the Directorate of Graduate Training (DGRT) that include Advanced Research Methods, Scholarly Writing, and Philosophy of Methods.The courses are offered in a blended mode: online and physical.

Offer

HEALENAE will recruit altogether 15 PhD fellows, referred to as Doctoral Candidates (DCs). The Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Leuven en Makerere University (Uganda) invite applications for 1 dual PhD fellowship in the field of anthropology where the two universities have mutual strengths and can offer excellent research environments. The available position is hosted by the University of Leuven (Primary University) and Makerere University (Secondary University).

This will be one fully-funded 3-year PhD fellowship in anthropology of health and environment under the broad topic Youth mental health and gambling epidemics in times of environmental crisis. The successful candidate must commence their PhD degree program by 1 September 2026.

Project 13: Youth mental health and gambling epidemics in times of environmental crisis

Supervisors: Ann Cassiman (KUL) & Stella Neema (MU)

See Project Description above.

Enrolment and employment at University of Leuven:

The PhD student must complete the studies in accordance with the current regulations for the Doctoral program in Social Sciences at KULeuven: https://soc.kuleuven.be/fsw/doctoralprogram

The PhD scholar will be employed as a PhD student at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Leuven. In general, the student is expected to be present at the school on an everyday basis when he/she is in Belgium.

KU Leuven strives for an inclusive, respectful and socially safe environment. We embrace diversity among individuals and groups as an asset. Open dialogue and differences in perspective are essential for an ambitious research and educational environment. In our commitment to equal opportunity, we recognize the consequences of historical inequalities. We do not accept any form of discrimination based on, but not limited to, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, ethnic or national background, skin colour, religious and philosophical diversity, employment disability, health, or socioeconomic status.

For questions about accessibility or support offered, we are happy to assist you atthis email address.

• Job application procedure
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• Career opportunities

https://healenae.eu/

Interested?

Do you have a question about the online application system? Please consult ourFAQor email us at[emailprotected]

For questions about PhDs at the Faculty of Social Sciences, please contact the Doctoral School of the Faculty of Social Sciences ([emailprotected])

If you have questions about the PhD position, please contact supervisor Ann Cassiman, [emailprotected]andco-supervisor: Stella Neema, [emailprotected]

If you have questions about the EU requirements, please contact Mia Korsbaek, [emailprotected]

The application must be submitted in English.

Deadline for applications: 1 March 2026, at 23.59 Brussels time (CET/CETS).

KU Leuven strives for an inclusive, respectful and socially safe environment. We embrace diversity among individuals and groups as an asset. Open dialogue and differences in perspective are essential for an ambitious research and educational environment. In our commitment to equal opportunity, we recognize the consequences of historical inequalities. We do not accept any form of discrimination based on, but not limited to, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, age, ethnic or national background, skin colour, religious and philosophical diversity, neurodivergence, employment disability, health, or socioeconomic status. For questions about accessibility or support offered, we are happy to assist you at this email address.