Research Fellow in Nomadic Work/Lives in the Knowledge Economy
College of Humanities
Institute for the Study of Knowledge in Society
University of Limerick, Ireland
This research position arose as a result of the University of
Limerick's participation in the Irish Social Sciences Platform (ISSP)
which brings together expertise from eight Irish institutional
partners and 19 academic disciplines to create an all-island,
interdisciplinary platform for social science research. ISSP has been
granted €16.5m as part of the Programme for Research in Third-Level
Institutions (PRTLI), Cycle 4.
Research Fellow in Nomadic Work/Lives in the Knowledge Economy
This Research Fellow will work on the “Nomadic work/lives in the
knowledge economy project”, which involves collaboration between the
Department of Sociology, Women’s Studies and the Interaction Design
Centre (IDC), Department of Computer Science and Information Systems
at UL. The Research Fellow will play the lead role in co-ordinating
the project team (two faculty members and two PhDs) to meet the
targets set for the project and will be located in the Department of
Sociology.
This project is located within a new mobilities-oriented social
science in which movement, potential movement and blocked movement
are seen as constitutive of economic, social, political, cultural and
material relations (Urry 2007). This ‘new mobilities
paradigm’ (Hannam et al, 2006, p. 2) identifies the power of
discourses and practices of mobility in the knowledge economy and how
they in turn produce new understandings of movement and stasis (Gray,
2004; 2006). This concern with mobility within the knowledge economy
has given rise to academic debate about changes in work practices.
Much of this debate suggests a shift from work practices structured
by time and space (often 9-5 in the workplace/office), and clear
demarcations between paid work and non-paid work life, to more
flexible, multi-located nomadic work practices that blur the
boundaries between work and life (Ciolfi et al., 2005).
This project brings debates about the knowledge economy, the future
of work and a more local and de-centered notion of mobility, i.e.
nomadicity, together to investigate ‘nomadic work/life practices’ and
the relationship between these and what has come to be known as the
‘new economy or the ‘knowledge economy’. The project also examines
the assumption that new technologies facilitate and enable both
nomadic work/life practices and thus the progress of the knowledge
economy.
The nomadic work/lives project is concerned then with investigating
the relationships between a technologically-mediated knowledge
economy, mobile/nomadic work and non-work life practices. The project
starts out with the question of whether, as the academic literature
suggests, new work/life patterns are emerging; if so, how these might
be most plausibly theorised; what their gendered implications for
work and home life are; and how everyday work/life practices are
technologically mediated. The project brings together concerns and
issues pertaining to the societal and identity-related matters of
‘being mobile’, and the interaction design and computer-supported
cooperative work tradition studies of workplace and technology use.
Further information for applicants and application material is
available online from: http://www.ul.ie/hrvacancies/
For queries about this position, please contact Dr. Breda Gray
([log in to unmask])
More information regarding the project is available at: http://
richie.idc.ul.ie/luigina/NomadicWorkLifeInformationforApplicants1.doc
The closing date for receipt of applications is 22nd February 2008.
Applications must be completed online before 12 noon on the closing
date.
PhDs Research Opportunities at the University of Limerick
Institute for the Study of Knowledge in Society
The PhD opportunities are to conduct research as part of the “Nomadic
work/lives in the knowledge economy project”, which involves
collaboration between the Department of Sociology, Women’s Studies
and the Interaction Design Centre (IDC), Department of Computer
Science and Information Systems at UL.
The nomadic work/lives project is concerned then with investigating
the relationships between a technologically-mediated knowledge
economy, mobile/nomadic work and non-work life practices. The project
starts out with the question of whether, as the academic literature
suggests, new work/life patterns are emerging; if so, how these might
be most plausibly theorised; what their gendered implications for
work and home life are; and how everyday work/life practices are
technologically mediated. The project brings together concerns and
issues pertaining to the societal and identity-related matters of
‘being mobile’, and the interaction design and computer-supported
cooperative work tradition studies of workplace and technology use.
PhD1 The gender of work/life in the knowledge economy
Women’s increased labour market participation in developed countries
is seen as a route to autonomy and greater gender equality.
Nonetheless, labour markets and work practices remain gendered
especially at those points of intersection between how people earn a
living and care for others (Gillard et al., 2007). This research will
intervene in recent academic debates about the relationships between
the ‘knowledge economy’ labour market, changing household structures
and shifts in the gender regime. It will also address the public/
private nexus of nomadic work/life organisation and its gendered
dimensions. It will address such questions as: How do women and men
negotiate the boundaries between paid work and other parts of their
lives? How are these negotiations mediated by new technologies,
changes in work practices, and classed/ethnicised gender regimes? In
what ways are strategies for managing nomadic work/life boundaries
gendered? Are new gendered norms and expectations emerging? Are these
more equal? Do they deliver more gender justice?
For queries, contact Dr. Breda Gray ([log in to unmask])
PhD2 Practices of technologically-mediated nomadicity in the
knowledge economy
Within the fields of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and
Interaction Design, an increasing attention is being paid to aspects
of mobile and nomadic activities that interactive technology can
support. More recently, work has been conducted to highlight situated
aspects of mobility. For example, Kakihara and Sorensen have
suggested how “mobility” as a notion needs to be unpacked into not
simply a location-related notion, but in terms of interactional
practices (Kakihara and Sorensen, 2005). Brown and O’Hara (2003) have
argued how place constitutes a crucial practical concern for mobile
workers, as they are constantly situated within a lived environment.
This PhD will explore issues related to the technological mediation
of nomadic practices: how do place, activities and the social world
constitute the experience of nomadic users? In what way technologies
are shaping people’s work/life on the move? What are the aspects of
mobile interaction that design could meaningfully support?
The research will be situated within the research areas of Human-
Computer Interaction, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and
Interaction Design
For queries, contact Dr. Luigina Ciolfi ([log in to unmask])
More information regarding the project is available at: http://
richie.idc.ul.ie/luigina/NomadicWorkLifeInformationforApplicants1.doc
The closing date for applications is 22 February 2008.
Further details on the topics and application process are available
from:
Niamh Lenahan, College of Humanities, University of Limerick, Ireland.
Tel: +353-61-202945 Email: [log in to unmask]
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