(5-year) PhD position in the department Law, Society & Crime

Introduction

Driven by its ambition to expand its position as a leading research institute in Europe, Erasmus School of Law is recruiting a PhD researcher (5-years), with 20% teaching tasks (fulltime). 

Job description

The Department Law, Society & Crime provides a home to researchers in Criminology, Criminal Law, Sociology of Law and Health Law. Research in the Department focuses on four distinct, albeit interrelated research lines:

1. The study of phenomena related to unsafety, insecurity, and marginalization, and the social responses to these phenomena, both from a legal normative perspective and an empirical perspective;
2. The analysis of fundamental assumptions underlying rules and regulations and studying the implementation of regulation, its effectiveness and its legitimacy, and the unintended consequences of the way in which the law is implemented;
3. The study of actors and professions within the (criminal) justice system, including judicial decision-making and the way in which legal professionals operate;
4. Fundamental legal reflection on the role of legal sanctions, (reforms in) criminal proceedings, and the study of transitions between legal domains including questions about competences between various jurisdictions and authorities.

Thematically, this includes (but is not limited to) research on various forms of crime and harm (environmental crime, juvenile crime, organised and subversive crime, corporate and white-collar crime, fraud, radicalism), medical-ethical issues, migration, diversity, multiculturalism, and processes of inclusion/exclusion, research on the role of legal sanctions, research on different modes of governance and its intended and unintended consequences, and digitalization and the use of big data.

Research in the department is characterized by the multidisciplinary background of its staff (criminal law, criminology, sociology, anthropology, public administration, psychology), often adopts an empirical perspective and applies multiple empirical research methods (qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods research). Moreover, given the multidisciplinary background of its staff, the Department is particularly well equipped to study international comparative socioeconomic and legal issues that have global causes and are often dealt with nationally or locally.

The Department is responsible for a considerable part of the bachelor and master curricula of Erasmus School of Law. Specifically, the department provides bachelor education in Criminology, Criminal Law, Law and Sociology, and health law. Furthermore, the Department Law, Society & Crime is responsible for 4 Master programmes, including in Criminology, an International Master in Advanced Research in Criminology, Criminal Law, and a Double Degree programme preparing for legal practice. Most of the bachelor teaching is in Dutch, teaching in the masters is also in English.

PhD position on migration

Key words: border criminology, migration industry/controls, everyday experiences in the immigration system, street-level bureaucrats in the migration field, social/spatial justice in the migration domain, social harms/zemiology.

Description: Migration - one of the most debated societal issues in contemporary globalized world - is central in this PhD project. Within this broader topic, applicants are invited to formulate a concrete idea for a multidisciplinary, preferably qualitative research project. This idea could center around – but is not limited to – topics such as:

• Border criminology, that is the academic discipline which, inter alia, addresses topics such as (unauthorized) migration, globalization, bordering processes, controls and citizenship.
• The migration industry including all state and non-state actors that have - or about to - obtain a role in this industry as well as the experiences of migrants navigating through this industry.
• Migration controls and its implementation in everyday immigration practices, including the role of AI and the digitalization, responsibilization processes, humanitarianism aspects, and the discretionary decision-making processes by street-level bureaucrats. Applicants may also focus on specific control measures such as immigration detention, crimmigration prisons, the immigration police, or many others.
• Migration processes and trajectories in different localities including the use of intermediatory agents, ICT and others.
• Migration in a social just world including the legitimacy, social justness and spatial justice of migration, the morality of immigration systems, social harms, injustices and/or legal violence in the migration domain, or societal responses to migration.
• The role of race and intersectionality in immigration legislation, policies and everyday practice.
• Other migration-related research ideas that fit in the research program of Erasmus School of Law. 

Supervision: Daily supervisor - dr. Mieke Kox, first supervisor from the Law, Society and Crime department to be decided (depending on the topic).

Job requirements

We are looking for candidates who:

• hold a master’s degree in Law, Criminology or other discipline relevant for this PhD position;
• can demonstrate scientific research skills;
• can demonstrate experience with empirical research methods
• have excellent oral and written skills in English (requirements: see application format)
• Candidates capable of teaching in Dutch are particularly encouraged to apply.

Teaching will be in the Department of Law, Society & Crime; the particular teaching tasks will be decided on the basis of the expertise of the candidate as well as the needs of the Department, and may be in the areas of research methods, criminology, criminal law, empirical legal studies, and possible thesis supervision. Teaching tasks will be mostly in Dutch; teaching in English may also be part of the tasks.

Current master students are welcome to apply. However, appointment will only be possible if the master degree has been obtained before the start of the employment contract. You can apply without having proof of obtaining your master’s degree, however, bear in mind that proof of a master’s degree is a formal requirement for employment and has to be delivered at least 3 weeks before the start date of the contract.