PhD White Rose Studentship: Insecurity, Marginality and Control in the Post-industrial City

Posted on 1 February 2011

This studentship is part of the broader White Rose network on Global Anxieties and Urban Governance.

Applications for this studentship are now CLOSED

Principal Supervisor: Dr. Simon Winlow (University of York)
Co-supervisor: Dr. Emma Wincup (University of Leeds)

The Department of Sociology at the University of York would like to invite applications for this fully funded PhD studentship investigating ‘Insecurity, Marginality and Control in the Post-industrial City’.

This PhD studentship will explore contemporary forms of urban governance and examine the processes that lead to the targeting of particular urban populations in both public and ‘quasi-public’ spaces that are commonly believed to pose problems for social order. It will consider questions such as: which social groups are believed to pose a threat to social order? What are the processes that identify these social groups as problematic? What drives the production of these perceptions of threat? What is the relationship between these perceptions and the actual social activity of this apparently ‘problematic’ social group? It will also consider the constitution of contemporary urban civility and the shaky foundations upon which it is built by exploring the following questions: why are there such high levels of anxiety about crime and violence when most reliable indicators suggest that these social problems are continuing to decline? Why are we seeing the growth of gated communities and other forms of withdrawal from urban social life? How can we understand the intricacies of emotional insecurity and their relationship to pragmatic, informal and institutional attempts to enforce, control and reaffirm ‘security’?These core themes should be understood broadly, and we encourage applications from candidates who are keen to develop their own innovative research agenda around insecurity, marginality and control in the post-industrial city.

The White Rose studentships for 2011 offer:

A full Research Council equivalent stipend: £13,590pa
A fee waiver at the home/EU rate (Overseas candidate are welcome to apply): £3466
A Research Support Grant: £900

Closing date: 14th March 2011

Additional details can be found at: http://www.york.ac.uk/students/housing-and-money/financial-support/bursaries/postgraduate/white_rose/

This PhD studentship is part of a network sponsored by the White Rose universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York: the Global Anxieties and Urban Governance (GAUG) studentship network. The GAUG network aims to develop PhD students with capacities for cross-disciplinary theorising and combining research methodologies into the experience at the local level of global anxieties related to conflict, insecurity, injustice and threat. The network will promote and coordinate the interaction of students and supervisors with shared interest in governance, security, international crime, social exclusion, technologies and crime prevention.

Two other studentships within the GAUG network are available: one based in at the University of Sheffield and another based at the University of Leeds. Applicants can apply for more than one of these studentships but must clearly indicate their preferred studentship.

Appointment criteria

Applicants should have undergraduate and postgraduate degrees in the social sciences or humanities.
Applicants should be able to display a good level of understanding of key academic ideas that relate to ‘Insecurity, Marginality and Control in the Post-industrial City’.
Applicants should be able to outline a proposal for an innovative empirical research project that addresses the project’s core themes.

Background information

The huge social and economic transformations of the 1980s produced a cross-disciplinary interest in the new forms of poverty and marginalisation that were developing in neo-liberal, post-industrial Western societies. In the US, the concept of an urban underclass quickly found prominence, focusing attention on the ‘undeserving poor’ and their apparent moral and behavioural delinquency. In the UK social scientists developed a critical interest in ‘processes of social exclusion’ and recognised that marginality is often global in its causes but local in its impact. The economic boom times of the late 1990s and early 2000s appeared to quell this interest slightly, but we now find ourselves in the grip of a huge global recession, and it is vital that we revitalise academic interest in contemporary forms of urban marginality and social exclusion.

This studentship will address the quantifiable rise in emotional insecurity that is a key feature of post-industrial cities. This insecurity inspires forms of social anxiety that often find expression in the production of negative images and discourses that address ‘the other’. In this sense, ‘the other’ is the individual whose ‘difference’, for whatever reason, inspires anxiety and results in conflict; in some cases, more direct forms of social antipathy, aggression and ‘crimes of vindictiveness’. Formal social control is centred upon ‘the other’ rather than those who engage in exclusionary practices.

Objectives

This broad-based studentship will explore contemporary forms of urban governance and examine the processes that lead to the targeting of particular urban populations in both public and ‘quasi-public’ spaces that are commonly believed to pose problems for social order. It will consider questions such as: which social groups are believed to pose a threat to social order? What are the processes that identify these social groups as problematic? What drives the production of these perceptions of threat? What is the relationship between these perceptions and the actual social activity of this apparently ‘problematic’ social group? It will also consider the constitution of contemporary urban civility and the shaky foundations upon which it is built by exploring the following questions: why are there such high levels of anxiety about crime and violence when most reliable indicators suggest that these social problems are continuing to decline? Why are we seeing the growth of gated communities and other forms of withdrawal from urban social life? How can we understand the intricacies of emotional insecurity and their relationship to pragmatic, informal and institutional attempts to enforce, control and reaffirm ‘security’?

Resource and facilities available

The successful student will be provided with office space and IT facilities within the Department of Sociology at the University of York. They will benefit from being part of the active research culture of the department, and will have access to all the core services of the university.

Training provision for student

The University of York requires all postgraduate research students to complete practical and academic training before graduating with a PhD. The successful student will be offered the chance to take additional Masters-level methods training in the Department of Sociology.

How To Apply
This is a two stage process:

Complete an online application form for the PhD Sociology and submit at least one week before the 14 March

deadlineComplete the online application for the White Rose Studentship and submit before the 14 March deadline