Postdoctoral Researcher for the Prince Claus Chair

´Technology and Citizen Technoscience: Connecting Local Environments with the Ecological Crisis´

The Prince Claus Chair (PCC) for Equity and Development seeks to fill a postdoctoral research position starting in December 2023 (negotiable) in the field of the social sciences of the interrelations between climate change, technology and citizen science in the global south. The position is connected to the Prince Claus Chair, which for the 2023-2025 period will be held by Prof. Sebastián Ureta.

Research topic

Every day we come across news stories about climate change's devastating effects. These effects are compounded by the impacts of multiple forms of contamination and biodiversity depletion. Especially in the global south, local environmental impacts of environmental degradation are extensive and include multiple forms air, soil, and water contamination due to industrial activity and unsustainable consumption patterns, greatly affecting public well-being. These activities are most often located in peri-urban areas, generating multiple degradation hotspots with lasting socio-ecological effects. Independent and reliable information on the socio-environmental impacts of these activities is often lacking. Given the limited local technical capacity and infrastructure, environmental data is frequently produced solely by companies and, less so, by public authorities. Affected local communities rarely have the chance to produce, access or even make sense of such data.

In recent years, different collectives and organizations have looked to redress this situation. Working within the frames of citizen science, DIY labs and maker movements, they have implemented projects aiming at designing and testing cost-effective methods and devices for the local measurement of several environmental parameters and phenomena. Enabled by a growing amount of affordable sensing technologies and increased public scientific literacy, these initiatives have aimed at providing easy-to-use tools for communities to carry out their own environmental monitoring. Not unfrequently they have achieved an important degree of sophistication, producing methods and prototypes that manage to produce accurate environmental data at low costs, data that strengthen community demands for environmental justice and remediation. More than singular devices, these efforts could be seen as producing novel forms of citizen technoscience or complex networks of technical innovations, epistemic devices, and forms of practice, all focused on producing community-relevant environmental data with limited means. Given its high adaptability and low costs, citizen technoscience can become a powerful tool for climate action, sustainable development, and environmental protection through civic engagement.

However, commonly citizen technoscience initiatives face multiple barriers to moving beyond the singular projects and/or particular locations in which they were first deployed, greatly diminishing their overall capacity to impact the ongoing global ecological crisis. This lack of mobility is especially acute in the global south, given a plethora of regulatory, sociocultural, economic, and material barriers. Commonly, the only way in which citizen technoscience could proliferate is by becoming singular goods produced by for-profit companies (usually in the form of “frugal innovations”), losing in the process much of the socio-technical complexity that allowed them to provide meaningful data in the first place.

The 2023–2025 Prince Claus Chair will focus on exploring, analysing, and disrupting the barriers facing the mobilization of citizen technoscience for the participative assessment and/or remediation of environmental degradation in the global south. Working along with Prof. Ureta, the postdoctoral researcher will be tasked to explore the afterlives of a number of citizen technoscience projects carried out in the global south in the last decade. Some questions to be explored would be: Which barriers and challenges the actors involved face when trying to replicate and/or move to different locations? What happened after having prototypes that were deemed as “successful”? Which concessions they were forced to make to move initiatives forward? At which point they gave up? And, more speculatively, how citizen technoscience could expand without losing its soul to commodification and privatization? Remaining dense socio-technical networks for community action and not solely singular devices? These questions will be explored through a mixture of ethnographic and action-research methods, aiming at producing high-impact publications and a public outreach initiative.

The Prince Claus Chair

Established in 2003, the objective of the Prince Claus Chair is to continue the work of Prince Claus (1926-2002) in development and equity. The ISS and Utrecht University alternately appoint an outstanding young or middle-career academic from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean or the Pacific to the Prince Claus Chair. For the 2023- 2025 period the Prince Claus Chair research will be focused on the theme ´Technology and Citizen Technoscience: Connecting Local Environments with the Ecological Crisis’. During this period, the chair will be held by Prof. Sebastián Ureta and based at ISS. Prof. Ureta holds a joint position at College UC and the Instituto para el Desarrollo Sustentable, Universidad Católica de Chile. Using the conceptual tools from science and technology studies and the environmental humanities, he is currently interested in exploring transitions towards more just and democratic modes of knowledge production in the context of the ongoing ecological crisis.

NWO-WOTRO

The post-doc researcher is partly funded by NWO-WOTRO Science for Global Development. NWO-WOTRO Science for Global Development is a cross-domain initiative within the Dutch Research Council (NWO), WOTRO Science for Global Development programmes, finances and facilitates research for inclusive global development. The WOTRO research programmes are aimed at providing knowledge and skills that contribute to sustainable solutions for social and ecological problems in low and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Duties

• Conducting ethnographic fieldwork with the PCC in Chile and other locations in the global south (to be determined) and working closely with the PCC and host of the PCC at ISS in The Netherlands
• Writing and publishing peer-reviewed publications emanating from the research of the PCC 2023-5
• Organizing an outreach initiative (to be determined) directed to the general public emanating from the research of the PCC 2023-5
• Performing relevant PCC administrative and committee duties

Requirements

• A PhD in Anthropology, Science and Technology Studies, Sociology, Development Studies or related disciplines
• Ability to do sustained collaborative ethnographic fieldwork in locations in the global south
• A strong publication record in accordance with her/his career stage
• Appropriate communication and language skills in English and other language (ideally Spanish) to carry out fieldwork at community level
• Availability to live and work in The Hague, The Netherlands for dedicated periods

Recommendations

• Demonstrated interest in science and technology studies and development studies
• Expertise in the fields of citizen science, DIY maker culture and environmental justice
• Experience carrying out fieldwork in locations in the global south
• Experience organizing outreach initiatives, preferably in location in the global south
• Existing relationship with community based and non-governmental organisations in the global south relevant to the area of interest of the call

We offer you an internationally oriented and varied job in an enthusiastic team, with excellent working conditions in accordance with the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO-NU).

The start date of this position is 01-DEC-2023 (negotiable) and you will be based at the International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) The Hague. This position is for 1 FTE. The salary is dependent on your experience and knowledge and ranges from a minimum of € 3.226 to a maximum of € 5.090 gross per month (scale Scale 10) on a fulltime basis (38 hours), in accordance with the CAO-NU. The successful candidate will be offered a temporary fulltime contract for one year with a possibility of an extension of another year after proven suitability for the position, at the level of Post-doc with Erasmus University Rotterdam.

Furthermore, we offer you:

• Everything you need for a good work-life balance: the option to work from home in consultation with your manager, 41 days of paid leave with a 40 hour contract, 8% holiday pay and an 8.3% end-of-year bonus, and a significant discount on a subscription for our on-campus sports centre
• Sustainable, inclusive and diverse work environment with an open culture, where you can be yourself and we pay attention to each other and to the world around us. Make the most of our bicycle budget, or join networks such as Young@EUR, FAME, QuEUR, or Young Erasmus Academy.
• Time and space for your development in the broadest sense: development days and a personal career budget, foreign exchange opportunities with most costs paid by EUR, and free access to our university library.
• Pension contribution with ABP (that EUR contributes 2/3rds towards), discounts on various collective insurances with Zilveren Kruis Achmea, Loyalis, and Allianz, and compensation for travel, working from home and home internet use.
• Are you currently combining your job with parenthood, or do you want to do so in the future? EUR offers partially paid parental leave and fully paid additional birth leave for partners, and our campus features a daycare.
• Moving to the Netherlands for your job with EUR? Then you may be eligible for the 30%-ruling if you meet the requirements of the Belastingdienst (Dutch tax agency), and with our Dual Career Programme we will also help your partner find the right job for them.

Erasmus University Rotterdam

Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) is an internationally oriented university with a strong social orientation in its education and research, as expressed in our mission ‘Creating positive societal impact’. EUR is home to 3.700 academics and professionals and almost 33.000 students from more than 140 countries. Everything we do, we do under the credo The Erasmian Way – Making Minds Matter. We’re global citizens, connecting, entrepreneurial, open-minded, and socially involved. These Erasmian Values function as our internal compass and create EUR’s distinctive and recognizable profile. From these values, with a broad perspective and with an eye for diversity, different backgrounds and opinions, our employees work closely together to solve societal challenges from the dynamic and cosmopolitan city of Rotterdam. Thanks to the high quality and positive societal impact of our research and education, EUR can compete with the top European universities. www.eur.nl.

Faculty / Institute / Central service
The International Institute of Social Studies (ISS) is a leading academic center for international development studies. While based in The Hague, the ISS is part of Erasmus University Rotterdam. ISS was established in 1952 as a post-graduate institute of policy-oriented critical social science and development-oriented research. ISS brings together a highly diverse international community of scholars and students from both the global South and the global North, on average originating from over 50 different countries. The Institute brings together people, ideas and insights in a multi-disciplinary setting which nurtures, fosters and promotes critical thinking and innovative research on fundamental social problems. The strong partnerships with organizations and individuals in developing countries make up a vibrant network where we co-create knowledge so that teaching and research remain socially relevant. Key to the ISS philosophy and practices is the wish to contribute to achieving social justice and equity on a global level.

Established in 2003, the objective of the Prince Claus Chair is to continue the work of Prince Claus (1926-2002) in development and equity. The ISS and Utrecht University alternately appoint an outstanding young or middle-career academic from Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean or the Pacific to the Prince Claus Chair. For the 2023- 2025 period the Prince Claus Chair research will be focused on the theme ´Technology and Citizen Technoscience: Connecting Local Environments with the Ecological Crisis’. During this period, the chair will be held by Prof. Sebastián Ureta and based at ISS. Prof. Ureta holds a joint position at College UC and the Instituto para el Desarrollo Sustentable, Universidad Católica de Chile. Using the conceptual tools from science and technology studies and the environmental humanities, he is currently interested in exploring transitions towards more just and democratic modes of knowledge production in the context of the ongoing ecological crisis.