JOB DESCRIPTION

Digital infrastructures – broadly understood as ranging from the material infrastructures of the internet (routers, cables, datacentres) through protocols and standards all the way to the application layer – are ubiquitous these days. They form the substrate of what is often described as “digitality”, i.e. the fact that we live digital lives, exist in digital cultures and that digital technologies have become part and parcel of everyday live (Negroponte 1995).
Traditionally, infrastructures are understood as a domain of the state, even if not exclusively so. The relationship between infrastructures and states has long been an area of research in many disciplines. States rely on infrastructures to guarantee the functioning of the state and society, and states are often the actors that bring infrastructures into existence. The specific form and implementation of infrastructures however also shape the capabilities of the state. While they certainly do not determine the state, they allow for certain modes of governance, and preclude others.
For the case of digital infrastructures, there are important differences. Even though the Internet emerged from the state-sponsored efforts of the ARPANET, digital infrastructures today are built, maintained and evolved by private economic actors. The zones established through digital infrastructures are often larger than nation states, and may well be understood as orthogonal to the national order of things. Furthermore and as evidenced by the rise of the so-called social networks, they are also beginning to re-order the social.
It were however wrong to understand digital infrastructures as a mere challenge to states. Many states have also seized on the promises and potentialities of digital infrastructures in order to re-invent themselves for the 21st century. The digitalisation of public administration is one concrete example. Digital identity systems and tentative attempts to offer digital currencies cut closer to the central functions of the state. Even more fundamentally, state, society and economy are being re-imagined through digital infrastructures.
This PhD position offers the chance to explore the mutual entanglement of states and digital infrastructures in a specific case study of one state or state-like entity. As a PhD candidate, you will start by identifying a relevant case study, which will then be developed into a research design that will form the specific PhD project.
Your PhD project will be closely supervised by Dr. Bernd Kasparek and will be attached to project on Digital infrastructures and European integration. He will act as your daily supervisor. You will be free to pursue your research within the parameters indicated above and developed through your research design while the cooperation aims to collectively advance the more foundational concepts.
Through your empirical research, you will contribute to theoretical foundations of a) the relationship between states and infrastructures and b) how digital infrastructures differentiate themselves from other classes of infrastructures. You will contribute to the ongoing development of methodological approaches to the study of digital infrastructures, which necessarily will be large inter- and even transdisciplinary.

JOB REQUIREMENTS

• You are a highly motivated and enthusiastic researcher with the ambition to conduct high-quality research in a fast moving field of contemporary relevance.
• You have a Master’s degree in a relevant field, either from the technical and engineering disciplines, or the arts and humanities.
• You have prior experience with the study of digital technologies, infrastructures or states and government, and you are enthusiastic about interrogating the interaction of technology, infrastructures, society and government.
• You are highly interested in interdisciplinary research and understand yourself as a researcher crossing disciplinary boundaries.
• You have prior experience in independent qualitative or even ethnographic research. You are motivated to develop method innovations.
• You have a keen interest in contributing to the theoretical foundations underpinning the field of study.
• You have excellent study results and excellent command of English (essential). Please see for more information about English requirements: https://www.tudelft.nl/onderwijs/opleidingen/phd/admission
• You thrive in a collaborative and multi-disciplinary environment (essential).
• You are keen to collaborate with project partners and to translate your insights into practice and policy (desirable).

Please refer the Job description for details