Three Phd positions available and one Postdoc position available within the project ‘Digital Crossings in Europe: Gender, Diaspora and Belonging’ (CONNECTINGEUROPE). This project is funded by the European Research Council (ERC), by way of a Consolidator Grant awarded to the principal investigator (PI) Prof. dr. Sandra Ponzanesi (Professor of Gender and Postcolonial Studies, Utrecht University, the Netherlands) and will be running at Utrecht University, the Netherlands from 2016-2021.
The project aims to investigate the relation between migration and digital technologies, in particular the way in which the ‘connected migrant’ contributes to new forms of European integration and cosmopolitan citizenship. The project explores digital diasporas in relation to issues of gender, ethnicity and affective belonging, focusing on how new technologies enhance new forms of connectivity between the homeland and destination countries, bus also across diasporas. The project pioneers a new interdisciplinary method that combines media studies, postcolonial theories, digital humanities and gender studies, drawing from the humanities and social science. It proposes a comparative approach, based on qualitative digital methods, that focuses on Somali, Romanian and Turkish women migrants who have settled in some of Europe’s main cities (London – PhD1, Amsterdam – PhD2 and Rome – PhD3) and the way in which they keep digitally and emotionally connected to their homeland cities (Mogadishu, Bucharest, Istanbul – Postdoc). The project will chart how different forms of migration (labour, postcolonial and post socialist) impact on the new European order at the local and transnational levels.
Within the project, three PhD positions and a postdoc position (advertised separately) will be available for the following projects:
1. PhD1 – Digital Diasporas: London.
2. PhD2 – Digital Diasporas: Amsterdam.
3. PhD3 – Digital Diasporas: Rome.
4. Postdoc: The Politics of Home
The three PhDs will have to conduct fieldwork across the three migrant groups (Turkish, Somali, Romanian) in the proposed city (London, Amsterdam or Rome). The interaction, collaboration and sharing of data with the other PhDs and the postdoc is expected. The PhD and Postdoc candidates will of course have the opportunity to fill in the details of these projects or expand on them, based on their expertise, the data they gather and their own research ideas, all in consultation with the principal investigator.
If you are interested, please contact the project director, Prof. dr. Sandra Ponzanesi (s.ponzanesi(at)uu.nl) for more information. For a short description of the project please click the following link: www.digitaleurope.nl/.
To apply for the positions please go to:
Postdoc: https://www.academictransfer.com/employer/UU/vacancy/30039/lang/en/
PhD positions: https://www.academictransfer.com/employer/UU/vacancy/30040/lang/en/
