We are seeking to appoint a Research Fellow to work on policing and control (broadly conceived) of urban public spaces with Dr Vradis and his team at St Andrews. The post will be part of the St Andrews team of the Nordforsk Critical Understanding of Predictive Policing research project (https://www.nordforsk.org/projects/critical-understanding-predictive-policing). The project includes colleagues from the IT University of Copenhagen (Denmark), PROSA (Denmark), the University of Technology Tallinn (Estonia), the University of Latvia (Latvia), the Baltic Studies Centre (Latvia), the University of Oslo (Norway) and the University of St Andrews (UK).

The successful applicant will take a leading role in the Work Package led by St Andrews, looking at current practices and trends in the surveillance, policing and overall control of urban public spaces today. We are looking for an outstanding candidate with a critical and distinct understanding of and approach to current policing and control practices, broadly conceived. We envisage the successful candidate to have a background in disciplines including, but not limited to human geography, social anthropology, politics, IR, history or philosophy, with a particular focus on subdisciplines including urban studies, political geography, critical policing studies and critical surveillance studies. We are also looking for a candidate with prior ethnographic and qualitative field research as a whole, since the St Andrews Work Package will use a range of mix methods, including field observation, semi-structured interviews with users and key stakeholders of the selected field site, as well as a media discourse analysis of the site’s media coverage.

This is an excellent opportunity for a dynamic and dedicated researcher to work in an international team of researchers on a highly relevant topic. The Research Fellow will conduct original ethnographic research in the UK, seeking to understand the country’s implementation of digital technologies in surveillance and policing and they will input on the choice of the actual field site; they will analyse collected ethnographic data, lead in presentation of scientific articles for publication and contribute to the delivery of our impact plan, they will help organise workshops and events and they will be responsible for the design and the update of the project webpage.

The candidate should have a PhD (or will hold a PhD by time of appointment) in a social science discipline, experience in collecting and handling ethnographic field data and conducting ethnographic analysis. Good communication and management skills are essential. The post is available from mid March 2021 for 18 months, with a possibility for the Fellow to be in post as early as February 1 2021 if feasible and desirable.

Informal enquiries can be directed to: Dr Antonis Vradis, Antonis.Vradis@st-andrews.ac.uk; Dr Nissa Finney, Nissa.Finney@st-andrews.ac.uk.

Applications are particularly welcome from women, people from the Black, Asian, Minority or Ethnic (BAME) community and other protected characteristics who are under-represented in research posts at the University.

The University is committed to equality for all, demonstrated through our working on diversity awards (ECU Athena SWAN/Race Charters; Carer Positive; LGBT Charter; and Stonewall). More details can be found at http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/hr/edi/diversityawards/.

The School of Geography and Sustainable Development holds an Athena SWAN Bronze Award and is fully committed to equality, diversity and inclusion. More information can be found at https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/gsd/athenaswan/

School of Geography and Sustainable Development
Salary: £33,797 - £40,322 per annum
Fixed Term: 18 months
Start: Mid March 2021 or earlier if feasible