New levels of migration and mobility have changed the face of European cities, such as Bilbao. This had led to changing ‘superdiverse’ social realities, especially in ‘majority-minority’ neighbourhoods. The novelty of this emerging situation creates challenging circumstances particularly for ‘street-level workers’ such as teachers, police officers and healthcare professionals. This demands renewed understanding of the decision-making process of street-level workers.
This PhD project ‘ICONIC’ (‘International Comparative research Of street-level decisions in superdiverse Neighbourhoods In Context’) funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO Vidi grant) and led by dr. Mark van Ostaijen, will comparatively study street-level decisions in superdiverse neighbourhoods and investigate whether and why these decisions differ between Bilbao, Marseille, Rotterdam, Antwerp, Malmö, and Aarhus.
For this 4-year PhD project you will be based in Rotterdam, but for the fieldwork phase strong collaboration is ensured with the University of Deusto to conduct qualitative fieldwork in Bilbao and Marseille. As such, this PhD project does not require additional funding, nor extra means to conduct fieldwork, which is all covered by project funding.
Next to qualitative and ethnographic research skills it is important that the PhD candidate holds Spanish (Basque), English (and French) language skills. The project is divided into four subprojects (SP):
1) SP1 includes desk research and case file analysis about how decisions are based on what kind of legitimations
2) SP2 unfolds how decisions are justified in-the-making via shadowing and narrative interviews
3) SP3 focusses on situational assessment of street-level workers by vignette studies
4) SP4 includes Local and Transnational Labs in which participants will be brought together to discuss findings in a peer-learning infrastructure
The project is embedded in the Team Policy, Politics and Society of the Department of Public Administration and Sociology at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences of the Erasmus University Rotterdam. By the embeddedness within this team you will be supported to develop your research, teaching and impact skills.
Tasks and Responsibilities: - Getting acquainted with the state-of-the-art literature and developing a theoretical framework to examine it;
- Conducting fieldwork into neighbourhoods in Bilbao and Marseille, collecting and analysing qualitative data by content analysis, narrative interviews, shadowing, focus groups and vignettes among relevant stakeholders;
- Publish articles on the intersection of street-level decision-making and superdiversity studies and complete a PhD thesis consisting of research articles within the appointed period;
- Coordinating Local Labs and contributing to the Transnational Lab in one of the selected cities;
- Contribute to organizing events for international scholars (academic workshop and conference) and present your work at international conferences;
- Contributing to the teaching activities (10%) of the department and the opportunity to develop teaching skills (BKO);
- Collaborating with other researchers within the Team Policy, Politics and Society and department of Public Administration and Sociology and contribute to the vibrant academic life in Rotterdam.