PhD-scholarship in narratives of life course trajectories of segregation

The Faculty Social Sciences & Solvay Business School, Department Sociologie, is looking for a PhD-student with a doctoral grant. 

More concretely your work package, for the preparation of a doctorate, contains: 

The Faculty of Social Sciences & Solvay Business School at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel is recruiting a full-time PhD-student to join the project ‘Segregation through Life and Space: Ethnic residential segregation from a longitudinal life course, intersectional and experience-based perspective’ (SeLiS), funded by Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) and carried out at the Department of Sociology. SeLiS is a comparative mixed-method research project led by Prof. dr. Lena Imeraj and Prof. dr. Tuba Bircan, investigating individual trajectories of segregation of minoritized communities in Belgium.

About the project

Residential ethnic segregation, although widely observed, is not fully understood. Segregation research has made a lot of methodological progress but has not been able to integrate new insights arising from population studies and urban scholarship, including longitudinal approaches and linked lives. This project aims to contribute to the understanding of ethnic segregation in three ways. Conceptually, it will develop a novel framework for understanding the processes and meanings of segregation that draws on theories of life course and intersectionality and integrates a focus on spatial context. Methodologically, it will build a mixed-methods approach to implement the framework based on quantitative and qualitative analysis. Empirically, it will provide new evidence on the intersecting causes and contexts of segregation through (i) the examination of spatial manifestations of de-standardised life course using unique individual, longitudinal and geocoded census and register data and advanced statistical and spatial techniques; (ii) the elucidation of narratives of segregation through subjective understandings of the multiplicity of (representations of) place and the experiences of living-in-segregation for different ethnic communities and community members through observation, interviews, mental mapping and portraits. By theorising and evidencing spatial manifestations of standardisation of life courses, the project intends to enhance academic scholarship in urban inequality.

About the PhD-position

This PhD research is in the framework of a 4-year research project ‘Segregation through Life and Space’ (SeLiS). The SeLiS project team will consist of one postdoc, one PhD, the co-PI and the PI; and will collaborate closely with the ‘Connecting Generation Centre ’ (CGC) project, based at the Centre for Population Change (CPC) in the United Kingdom and led by Prof. dr. Nissa Finney (St Andrews University). You will work closely with the postdoc and the CGC-team to construct, unfold and understand life course trajectories of segregation in Belgian cities. This will allow you to provide crucial insights into context- and time-specific experiences with residential segregation. The SeLiS-team is part of the AIMS-lab within BRISPO , the vibrant research unit you will be joining. For this function, the Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus (Elsene) will serve as your home base.

Your key tasks and responsibilities in the project include: 

• preparing a doctoral dissertation in the field of Sociology within four years under the supervision of Prof. dr. Lena Imeraj and Prof. dr. Tuba Bircan;
• setting up and carrying out ethnographic fieldwork relying on complementary methods aligned with the project objectives;
• analysing the qualitative data;
• contributing to the quantitative analysis and the conceptual framework through an iterative process;
• authoring and co-authoring publications in internationally peer-reviewed outlets;
• supporting the project related work, such as the preparation of policy reports and active dissemination of research results.

For this function, our Brussels Humanities, Sciences & Engineering Campus (Elsene) will serve as your home base.