Following the development and implementation of a new Urban Futures Research Programme at the Department of Human Geography and Planning, Utrecht University is now looking to appoint a Chair in Social Urban Transitions.
A Chair is a full-time appointment including a management component. The appointee will be expected to spend 50% of time on research activities and 50% on teaching, however, this percentage is dependent on responsibilities and management tasks.
The Chair in Social Urban Transitions will develop innovative research and education with respect to the emerging scientific research in the areas of inequality, diversity and international migration. Cities are inherently unequal as well as diverse and urban research at Utrecht identifies the relation between various forms of urban inequalities and urban diversities as a major challenge. Increasing diversity and inequality are closely related to international migration and the integration of immigrants in the global north as well as the global south. The integration process is not only complicated by changes in the host society, but also the increasing importance of the phenomenon of transnationalism which has implications for the links between place of residence and ideas of local and national belonging.
The Chair will investigate cities as crossroads of multiple forms of flows, crucial to the understanding of how social, cultural and economic processes are connected to other parts in the world. At the level of individuals, cities and neighbourhoods are investigated as sites of interactions between a 'fixed' population and people on the move both transnationally and trans-locally. Both a quantitative as well as qualitative approach can be applied.
