Please feel free to suggest this to any promising prospective students. Cheers Tim Postgraduate Research Students Project: The Social Life of Methods Faculty of Social Sciences, the Open University in Milton Keynes Start date: 1 October 2010 Ref RD/MB/05 Salary: £13,290 p.a. The Department of Sociology invites applications for a University-funded PhD studentship for three years commencing October 2010. The Social Life of Methods (SLOM) is an interdisciplinary programme of research based in the ESRC Centre for Research on Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC). Using theoretical ideas from science and technology studies (STS), anthropology, political economy and cultural sociology, SLOM analyses research methods, not simply as benign ‘tools’, but as performative agents of the social and of different kinds of social and cultural change Applicants are particularly welcome from students who wish to pursue research in any of the following broadly-defined areas: Methods as Devices, Objects or Technologies Visual Methods Methodological Challenges of Digital Data Methods and Social Transformation/Change For informal enquiries contact Dr Mark Banks m.o.banks@open.ac.uk. More specific details about research in the Faculty and Department can be found on the Faculty’s website: http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences and the CRESC website; www.cresc.ac.uk. For detailed information and how to apply go to www3.open.ac.uk/employment and http://www.open.ac.uk/socialsciences/phd, or email socsci-phd-applications@open.ac.uk quoting the reference number RD/MB/05. Closing date: 5pm on 27th May 2010, interviews will be held in Milton Keynes in mid June 2010. Further particulars are available in large print, disk or audiotape (minicom 01908 654901). We promote diversity in employment and welcome applications from all sections of the community. -- The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales, and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).