media, information, the contemporary
Feature

Positions Vacant: Sarai Research Associates

The Sarai Programme at CSDS invites applications for three positions centered around media research.

The research agenda is historical and contemporary, archive based and ethnographic, and will traverse a variety of media, including radio, gramophone, cassette, photography, film, television, video, and digital forms.

Ongoing projects at Sarai include:

Media and information infrastructures

Social media archeologies

Researchers at Sarai have ranged from postdoctoral scholars to students working on their PhDs; M.A. and M.Phil graduates; media and cultural practitioners interested in research; and independent scholars. Researchers will work with ongoing projects at Sarai; we place a premium on collaborative research, including regular reading sessions, workshops and writing.

Possible topics include:

The histories of the emergence and circulation of media equipment and technology.

Laws and regulations governing media use, and their contestation.

State information and media policies, including the development of media and communication infrastructure in radio and television transmission, telegraph and telephone networks, and satellite and cable technology.

The deployment of media for identification and surveillance, and online vigilante cultures.

Social Media: legal conflicts, the transformation of politics, sexuality and privacy.

Media industry practices, including institutional and technological changes.

Computer culture, from software programming and management to digital compositing.

Sites of media consumption and circulation including shops for media goods, photographic studios, exhibition spaces ranging from cinema halls and video parlours to electronic bulletin boards and ambient television and video experience and the phenomenon of cellphone image capture and circulation.

Applicants should submit:

CV listing recent works and projects.

A writing sample from recent work.

A three-page research note summarising his/her research interests, and reasons for working at Sarai.

Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed at Sarai-CSDS, Delhi. Selected candidates will be appointed initially for one year, with the possibility of renewal for a second year.

The last date of submission is 16th November 2014.

Send all applications by email with subject title of ‘research positions’ to dak[at]sarai[dot]net.