[DEADLINE EXTENDED] Call for Applicants: Research Volunteers for ‘Solidarity Platforms’ Project

* Please note that we have extended the deadline for submissions. New deadline is on Wednesday 23 November *

CGHR Co-Directors Dr Sharath Srinivasan and Dr Ella McPherson, along with Postdoctoral Scholar Dr Sebastián Lehuedé, are looking for a small team of research volunteers. 

PROJECT OVERVIEW

Digital platforms have become the dominant paradigm when it comes to the design of technologically-mediated communication spaces. However, their data-extractive ethos, algorithmic opacity and profit-seeking model have rendered unlikely spaces for supporting plurality. 

Against this backdrop, ‘Solidarity Platforms’ proposes a way of thinking and doing platforms based on meaningful communication, where data is treated with care and users can contest the very foundations of the digital spaces in which they participate. This book takes a practice-based approach to digital platforms as its insights stem from human rights defenders and civic activists from across the world working on tech projects that can safeguard their values and ideals.

This project is based on the ‘Provocations: Tech Design and Human Rights’ Medium blog and is being developed in dialogue with Technology and Human Rights Fellows from the Carr Center, Harvard University.

PROJECT OUTCOME

Each member of the team will help identify and survey up to three technology projects by human rights and civic action groups from different regions of the world. The deliverable will consist of one case study per project according to a rubric provided by CGHR.

Case studies will be selected to feature in (1) the ‘Solidarity Platforms’ project, (2) a report to be published by the Carr Center, (3) a card came developed by CGHR.

TIMING / COMMITMENT

Initial estimation is that each case study would take around 5 hours. Volunteers will be working on the project in both MT and LT.

CGHR

The Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR) is an outward focused multi-disciplinary research endeavour strongly committed to advancing thought and practice within areas of critical importance to global justice and human well-being in the twenty-first century.

CGHR is currently co-directed by Ella McPherson, Associate Professor of the Sociology of New Media and Digital Technology at the Department of Sociology, and Sharath Srinivasan, the David and Elaine Potter Associate Professor of Governance and Human Rights at the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS).

Within Cambridge, CGHR brings together wide-ranging expertise from within Sociology and POLIS and across the University to build a core network of scholars, including graduate researchers.

APPLICATIONS

Applicants will be undergraduate or postgraduate students. A research interest in media & technology, human rights, activism and/or global social justice would be well-suited.

Please send a letter of motivation (500 words max) and a short CV to cghr@polis.cam.ac.uk before Thursday 23 November 2023.