Postdoctoral Researcher: Cities, Communities, and Social Infrastructure
The Institute for Public Knowledge’s (IPK) is searching for two postdoctoral research fellows to work on an ambitious, comparative project on how social infrastructure shapes cities and communities, with a focus on climate change, equity, belonging, and civic life. The positions are for one-year appointments, with the possibility of an extension for a second year. Social infrastructure refers to the physical places and organizations that shape conditions for collective life. In the public sector, libraries, parks, playgrounds, schools, swimming pools, athletic facilities, and senior centers are prominent forms of social infrastructure. In the private and nonprofit sectors, social infrastructure includes the YMCA, religious organizations, coffee shops, bars, and restaurants. Social infrastructure can be inclusive or exclusive, fostering in-group bonding or cross-group bridging, and is therefore a public good that can be beneficial or harmful. The research fellows will be part of a multidisciplinary team (including social scientists, policy analysts, urban planners, and designers) that will work to advance theories about social infrastructure and also establish better empirical evidence about its role in contemporary American cities and communities.
The postdoctoral fellows will be expected to do original empirical work assessing the state of social infrastructure in New York, to contribute to the IPK’s collective project on social infrastructure, and be part of the life of the institute. Fellows should expect to spend some time on extended research trips in different parts of New York. (IPK will cover travel expenses.) We are open to fellows with a range of skills and will consider applicants with backgrounds in both qualitative and quantitative research methods. The position is open to candidates with doctoral degrees in the social sciences, humanities, urban planning, and public policy. We will consider all applications but are especially interested in applicants interested in cities, communities, climate change, inequality, democracy, design, race and ethnicity, and class.
Review of applications will begin immediately and will continue until the search is successful. The position could begin as early as October, 2024, and no later than January, 2025.