PhD in Social Sciences

The Department of Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam is seeking three PhD candidates for the ERC-funded project 'Activist Techtopias: Crafting Alternate Infrastructures of Resistance in Asia' (AlterTech)./nAlterTech is an ethnographic study of how rights and grassroots movements across Asia navigate deepening digital repression by experimenting with new practices and uses of technologies, and how movement infrastructures are reconfigured. The PhD positions are embedded in the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) within the programme group Moving Matters: People, Goods, Power and Ideas. PhD candidates will develop ethnographic case studies in specific settings in Asia and are expected to conduct 12-months of ethnographic fieldwork in the country of their case study. Candidates are expected to live in the Amsterdam area and participate in the AISSR research environment. The positions start on 1 August 2026 and concern temporary employment of 38 hours per week for a maximum term of four years.