News and events
Post Doc open for applications
The Cyber Social Research Lab in the Department of Sociology & Criminology at University College Cork invites applications for a postdoctoral position for the Irish Research Council funded project “CyberSocial: Ethnography of Smart City”.
Post-Doctoral Researcher, Department of Sociology and Criminology, School of Society, Politics and Ethics | |||
24 Months, Fixed-term, Whole-time Post
Position summary
The Cyber Social Research Lab in the Department of Sociology & Criminology at University College Cork invites applications for a postdoctoral position for the Irish Research Council funded project “CyberSocial: Ethnography of Smart City”. The postdoc position is full time for 2 years. The position calls for on-campus attendance, fieldwork and some travel.
Salary: €42,031 - €48,427 p.a. (IUA PD1 Salary Scale)
Research context
The research project “CyberSocial” seeks to overcome current problems within urban digital transformation for addressing human values and technological normativity as cities globally incorporate new technologies into our homes, communities and city fabrics. While technology has the proven capacity to improve social and individual life, we must still answer the challenge of negative technological effects on the social. Our project seeks to determine patterns in cyber-social transformation so that we might mitigate future problems at the point of infusion. By cyber-social we simply mean the integration of digital and cyber technologies with social life.
The project aims are as follows:
The position
The successful applicant will plan and conduct ethnographic work with project participants and stakeholders in Cork City working on issues pertaining to the integration and impact of technologies in everyday life. Other duties including but not limited to will be teaching, supervision and administration as well as training and career development opportunities. The work will be carried out under the direction of the PI with support from the project team. Further details about the CyberSocial Research Lab are available here: www.cybersocial.ie. In addition to conducting and completing the ethnographic research, the postdoc is expected to:
Post Duration: 24 Months
Salary: €42,031 - €48,427 p.a. (IUA PD1 Salary Scale)
Project Title: CyberSocial – IRC Laureate
For an information package including further details of the post see
https://ore.ucc.ie/
Informal enquiries can be made in confidence to Dr. James Cuffe, Principle Investigator, Department of Sociology & Criminology / CyberSocial Research Lab, Tel: + 353 (0) 21 490 3567; Email:
jamescuffe@ucc.ie
Applications must be submitted online via the University College Cork vacancy portal: https://ore.ucc.ie
Please note, as part of the application, in addition to a cover letter, applicants are asked to
Queries relating to the online application process should be referred to
recruitment@ucc.ie, quoting the job-title and project name.
Candidates should apply, in confidence, before 12 noon (Irish Local Time) on Thursday, 10th August 2023.
No late applications will be accepted.
|
Understanding CyberSocial Change
Principal Investigator Dr. James Cuffe leads the IRC funded ethnographic project examining technological and digital transformations in urban life. We welcome collaboration both in Ireland and abroad from like-minded scholars and, of course, non-like-minded scholars.
This project seeks to overcome current problems within urban digital transformation for addressing human values and technical normativity as cities globally incorporate new technologies into our homes, communities and the city fabric. While technology has the proven capacity to improve social and individual life, we must still answer the challenge of negative technological effects on the social. Our project seeks to determine patterns in cyber-social transformation so that we might mitigate future problems at the point of infusion. By cyber-social we simply mean the integration of digital technologies with social life.
The project aims are as follows:
- The intermediate objective is to conduct local ethnographic research leading to evidence-based outputs that will help allay social issues in a small Irish city’s digital transition towards becoming a ‘Smart City’.
- The project aim is to identify and verify patterns in cyber-social transformation so that principles can be articulated for any urban digital transition at both design and policy levels to mitigate negative social consequences.
- CyberSocial’s ultimate ambition is to rehabilitate the conceptual division in applied settings between technics and culture (Simondon 2017) by hypothesising and then verifying patterns of cyber-social change. Simondon’s work was pre-digital but has now been extended to the digital realm by Yuk Hui (2016, 2019). As Simondon argues, “if culture would not incorporate technology, it would include an obscure zone and would be unable to make its regulative normativity bear on the coupling of the human being and the world” (2017: 227). It is this schism the project seeks to reconcile through applied social science.
CyberSocial takes an anthropological lens to examine digital transformation at the level of everyday life by observing and recording the incremental infusion of social life with cybertechnologies. This project will examine society at the threshold, ethnographically capturing the patterns of cyber-social transformation as they unfold. The findings from CyberSocial will provide the required evidence-based outputs to effect socially informed and nuanced policy for cultivating a socially and digitally just space for cyber-social living.
For more on this story contact:
Dr. James Cuffe
IRC Laureate
jamescuffe@ucc.ie