ERC MORTALMED PhD Scholarship - Lethal Prescriptions: Sodium Pentobarbital and Assisted Dying in Switzerland

About the Project

Project details

This subproject examines the role of sodium pentobarbital in assisted dying practices in Switzerland, focusing on how this pharmaceutical is embedded within medico-legal, ethical, and institutional regimes that govern voluntary death.

Switzerland occupies a singular position in the global landscape of assisted dying, where right-to-die organisations operate within a complex legal framework that permits assisted suicide under specific conditions.Within this context, sodium pentobarbital has become central to the enactment of a “good death,” functioning not merely as a technical means to end life, but as a pharmaceutical through which broader debates around dignity, autonomy, suffering, and legitimate death are negotiated.

Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Basel, Switzerland, this subproject investigates how sodium pentobarbital circulates through the infrastructures of assisted dying, from medical prescription and pharmacy acquisition to its administration in assisted death procedures. The project combines participant observation, semi-structured interviews with staff members of assisted dying organisations, physicians, pharmacists, and individuals seeking assisted dying, alongside discourse and legal analysis of medico-legal documents, court cases, and regulatory frameworks surrounding SP in Switzerland. Particular attention will be paid to how assisted dying organisations navigate legal uncertainty, pharmaceutical regulation, and shifting public debates concerning the legitimacy of assisted death.

The project explores how sodium pentobarbital becomes entangled in everyday practices of care, bureaucratic procedures, and institutional forms of authorization, tracing the social and political conditions under which access to assisted dying becomes possible. It asks how sodium pentobarbital is sourced, prescribed, distributed, and administered; what ethical and legal responsibilities shape pharmacists’ and physicians’ involvement; and how eligibility for assisted dying is established and contested.

Information on the School/Research Group

MORTALMED (Mortal Medicine: The Social Life of a Death-Inducing Pharmaceutical) is a five-year research project funded by the European Research Council (ERC Starting Grant) and led by Dr Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves.

Situated at the intersection of Medical Anthropology, Science and Technology Studies, and Political and Legal Anthropology, the project investigates the global circulation and local uses of sodium pentobarbital, a pharmaceutical employed in assisted dying, state executions, and animal euthanasia.

By tracing SP across different legal, medical, and political contexts, particularly Switzerland, the United States, and Mexico, the project examines how pharmaceuticals participate in the governance of life and death and contribute to the emergence of what the project conceptualises as “necro-socialities”: social worlds organised around death, dying, and pharmaceutical mediation.

The project adopts a primarily ethnographic and interdisciplinary approach, combining participant observation, interviews, archival ethnography, discourse and media analysis, and assemblage ethnography to follow SP across institutions, borders, and infrastructures.

MORTALMED consists of five interconnected subprojects. The project aims not only to contribute to academic debates on pharmaceuticals, governance, and death, but also to engage broader public audiences through a final public exhibition in Glasgow. The successful applicant will join an internationally oriented and collaborative research environment and contribute actively to the development of this ERC-funded project.

Eligibility

Applicants must meet the following eligibility criteria:

• A good Masters degree (or overseas equivalent)
• A demonstratable interest in the topic under investigation
• Study part-time or full-time
• Familiarity with, or interest in, ethnographic research methods, including participant observation and interviews
• German language skills preferably
• Available to conduct ehtnographic fieldwork in Switzerland, potentially involving two periods of up to six months each
• Considered 'Home' or 'Rest of UK' for fee status
• Entry requirements for the Sociology, PhD.

Funding Notes

The scholarship is available as a full-time +4 (4 year) PhD programme only. The programme will commence in October 2026. The full funding package includes:

• An annual maintenance grant (stipend) at the UKRI rate
• Fees at the standard Home tuition fee rate only
• Students can also draw on a Research Training Support Grant, usually up to a maximum of £940 per year