PhD/PostDoc call: DecouplingIT at the ITU

Deadline for application: 1 June, 2023.

The DecouplingIT project consists of a committed team of researchers working to ethnographically explore if and how (economic) growth is decoupled from climate impacts within various IT enterprises around the world.

The two PhDs/postdocs are expected to conduct independent ethnographic studies in either a European or an African climate/tech hub. That is, in ethnographic sites where climate and IT are in some form of interesting and/or problematic relationship. The ethnographic focus should be centred on how the climate becomes an object of attention and/or value within the world of IT organizations – broadly conceived as software developers or engineers, IT entrepreneurs, and so on. As an industry, IT is tasked with both reducing its own climate impacts while generating and facilitating ‘solutions’ for other industries. As such, the conjunction of climate and IT should be the central focus of the research proposal. The purpose of these sub-projects is to contribute to an understanding of how IT organizations and IT professionals in European or African countries mediate the complex set of relationships that arise at the nexus of climate and environmental concerns, narratives of entrepreneurial agency, and aspirations towards decoupled growth.

Read the call in full and apply here.