AlterTech is an ethnographic study of how rights and grassroots movements across Asia navigate deepening digital repression by experimenting with new practices and uses of technologies, both to dodge the repression and to disrupt the infrastructures that enable it. It examines how political and technological action intersect and how movement infrastructures are reconfigured in a context where state surveillance and surveillance capitalism coalesce. By decentring the digital in our concept of technology, and exploring how technologies are crafted and infrastructures are reassembled bottom-up, we aim to uncover how a novel type of technopolitics and utopian imaginaries evolve in practices of resistance and everyday struggle. 

Inspired by decolonial epistemology and using a multi-modal collaborative methodology, AlterTech seeks not only to analyse these processes but also to engage in them. We therefore seek to form a team of dedicated researchers who are committed to exploring the generative possibilities of engaged scholarship. The research team – consisting of three PhD candidates, one postdoctoral researcher, and the Principal Investigator (PI) – will conduct ethnographic research at different scales. While the PI will examine hemispheric entanglements among transnational NGOs, and the PhD candidates will develop ethnographic case studies in specific settings in Asia, the postdoctoral researcher will conduct a multi-sited study among activists-in-exile and diaspora in Europe. 

The postdoctoral project will examine how dissident infrastructures are made in the diaspora, and explore the role of situated nodes in emerging networks, in a context of geographical dispersion and long-distance surveillance. We suggest the case of diaspora from China, Hong Kong, or Myanmar. However, strong proposals on different cases will be considered. Together with the PI, the postdoctoral researcher will also take an active role in creating synergy among the various sub-projects, with the aim to advance theories of infrastructural interventions and multiscalar technopolitics of contemporary activism.

Your tasks

• You will conduct a multi-sited ethnographic research project on diasporic Asian activism in Europe, through the lens of infrastructure and technopolitics.
• You will publish at least one single-authored and two co-authored articles based on this research, and co-edit a special issue on the subject.
• You will present your work at team workshops, at international conferences, and at research seminars in the Anthropology Department of the University of Amsterdam.
• You will assist the PI in coordinating the project, as well as in theory-building.
• You are expected to live in the Netherlands and take active part in team meetings and the research environment at the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) and the Moving Matters programme group.

You have:

• a PhD within the social sciences or humanities, preferably in social and cultural anthropology. The degree must have been obtained before the employment starting date;
• excellent oral and written communication skills in English;
• excellent command of ethnographic research methods and the ability and willingness to conduct challenging fieldwork on a sensitive topic;
• language proficiency and in-depth knowledge of the group you will do your research with;
• independent thinking and critical analytical skills;
• excellent collaboration skills and the ability to join interdisciplinary academic communities;
• excellent organisational skills needed to finish the project in three years while assisting the PI in coordinating the overall project; e.g. independent and proactive work attitude, good planning and academic writing skills.

You preferably have:

• previous research experience with ethnography of activism;
• knowledge of or affinity with current debates in anthropology of infrastructure, technology and activism;
• affinity with decolonial and engaged anthropology and commitment to exploring multi-modal participatory methods;
• a promising publication record relative to opportunity, in academic and non-academic outlets.

The position concerns temporary employment of 30.4 hours per week (0.8 fte) for a maximum term of three years. Employment will in principle start on 1 September 2026 and will initially be for one year. Following a positive assessment and barring altered circumstances, this term will be extended by two years.

 In case of equal qualifications, internal candidates will be given preference over external candidates. 

What else do we offer

• a position in which initiative and input are highly valued;
• an enthusiastic and warm team that is open to new colleagues;
• an inspiring academic and international community in the heart of Amsterdam.