Two PhD positions in Anthropology researching asylum procedures in Belgium

The research at the department is clustered around three axes: “making”, “living” and “moving”. Its faculty are committed to long-term ethnographic research in order to gain an in-depth understanding of how individuals and groups organize their lives, relate to pasts and prefigure futures. The department has a long-standing tradition in research on migration and mobility. 

For details and to apply, go to: https://www.kuleuven.be/personeel/jobsite/jobs/60607734?lang=en&sfnsn=mo. 

Project 

‘Unpacking the asylum procedure in its intersecting linguistic, sociocultural, psychological and legal dimensions’ (hereafter UNPACK) is an interdisciplinary and interuniversity iBOF project investigating fairness in asylum procedures. Asylum procedures are challenging, partly due to the diverse socio-cultural and linguistic backgrounds of all actors involved (such as applicants, officials, interpreters, and lawyers) and the interactions between them. 
The UNPACK project integrates insights from four disciplines – linguistics, anthropology, psychology and law – to examine the lived experiences of those involved. Through in-depth ethnographic research of specific case studies and the broader organizational context, UNPACK seeks to gain a deeper understanding of the asylum procedure, in order to develop a new, comprehensive and evidence-based framework of fairness. 
With iBOF funding, the Flemish universities pool resources from their research funds to support frontier research. UNPACK is coordinated by Karel Arnaut (anthropology, KU Leuven), Ilse Derluyn (social work, UGent), Katrijn Maryns (applied linguistics, UGent) and Ellen Desmet (law, UGent). The project is embedded in a unique collaboration – the first of its kind in Europe – with the Office of the Commissioner General for Refugees and Stateless Persons (CGRS), the Belgian authority responsible for deciding on applications for international protection. 

Profile 

Your tasks: 

• You will conduct ethnographic research from an anthropological perspective. The two PhD positions, respectively focus more on the front-office and on the back-office dimension of the asylum procedure, eliciting the lived experiences, contributions and viewpoints of the different participants. 
• You will develop the specific research focus in dialogue with the supervisors, the co-researchers and the asylum administration. 
• As a member of the UNPACK team, you will be intensively working together in a team of 8 researchers and 4 professors. You will share your data and analyses with your co-researchers and supervisors, and engage in extensive collaborative (interdisciplinary) research, next to individual (disciplinary-specific) research. 
• You will report on your research both academically and to a broader audience. 
• You contribute to collective responsibilities of the research group (such as educational services, team meetings, research proposals, supervision of bachelor and master students, invigilating exams, student recruitment activities, etc.).