After the Future of Work: Platformised Labour in a Hotter Australia

How can we better understand the twin forces of digital technologies and climate realities that increasingly shape our everyday lives? A fully funded PhD position is now open to join Dr. Luke Munn—internationally recognised researcher in critical media studies—for a cutting-edge project that traverses the fields of communication and media studies, anthropology, and environmental humanities.

This opportunity is situated within a Future Fellowship which examines the growing confrontation between “future of work” visions and climate-wracked realities through the lens of heat. Traditional work is giving way to informal and on-demand forms managed by digital technologies. Yet these models ignore the climate, placing workers in danger and enacting a heavy toll on the planet. As heat rises become frequent, existing models prove insufficient, with workers collapsing, millions of hours lost, and estimates of 15% less GDP. The “future of work” does not work.

This HDR opportunity invites applicants eager to investigate how such technologies reorganise labour, reinforce power, and condition the future. Possible areas include:

• AI/algorithmic governance and its shaping of the labouring body
• Platformisation, automation, and “digital” labour broadly understood
• Technical infrastructures and their relations to knowledge and power
• Thermopolitics, thermal cultures, thermopower
• Convergences between climate pressures and right-wing digital cultures
• Digital epistemologies and climate contingencies

Candidates may propose a related topic of their own design. The project supports methodological innovation—qualitative, theoretical, ethnographic, infrastructural, or hybrid approaches are welcome. We particularly welcome projects that closely investigate a particular “object” (platform, infrastructure, event, community, and so on) but thicken these empirically-driven insights via a sophisticated mobilisation of sociocultural, philosophical, political, or environmental theory.

The project is embedded within an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship project led by Dr Luke Munn, an internationally renowned scholar investigating the digital cultures that increasingly shape our lives by combining a deep understanding of technical logics (code, infrastructures, architectures) with a critical awareness of race and class, gender and labour, epistemologies and ecologies.

The project is situated at the School of Communication and Arts at The University of Queensland, a highly ranked university based in St Lucia, Brisbane. Besides the research opportunities provided by the School, this project will also benefit from affiliations with the Centre for Digital Cultures and Societies, as well as links to the ARC Centre of Excellence in Automated Decision-Making and Society. These factors create a world-class environment for research training and a rich intellectual culture to explore the relationship between digital imaginaries and labour and climate realities.

This project is supported by the Research project scholarship.

Learn more about the Research project scholarship.

Your application will be assessed on a competitive basis.

We take into account your:

• previous academic record
• publication record
• honours and awards
• employment history

A working knowledge of contemporary technologies, automated labour, and environmental pressures would be of benefit to someone working on this project.

You’ll demonstrate academic achievement in fields such as media studies, cultural studies, or the environmental humanities and the potential for strong scholastic success.

The ideal candidate has a strong working knowledge of contemporary technologies, automated labour, and their sociocultural, political, or environmental impacts. We welcome motivated applicants from fields such as:

• Media studies, internet studies, critical AI studies
• Infrastructure studies, platform studies, STS 
• Cultural studies, digital sociology, anthropology
• Environmental humanities, political theory, philosophy of technology
   

Ideal candidates are curious, critical thinkers excited by conceptual and empirical work at the intersections of technology and society, who have demonstrated achievement in these domains and who possess strong potential for academic success. Your application will be assessed on a competitive basis. We take into account your: previous academic record, publication record, honours and awards, and employment history.

You must submit an expression of interest (EOI) by 31 March, 2026 31 March, 2026.

Before you apply

1. Check your eligibility for the Doctor of Philosophy (PhD).
2. Prepare your documentation.
3. If you have any questions about whether the project is suitable for your research interests, contact Dr Luke Munn (l.munn@uq.edu.au).

When you apply

To apply, submit an expression of interest (EOI) for the program. You don't need to apply separately for the project or scholarship. How to submit an EOI

In your EOI, complete the ‘Scholarship/Sponsorship’ section with the following details:

1. Are you applying for an advertised project: 'Yes'
2. Project: 'Research project scholarship'
3. Scholarship Code Listed in the Advertisement: LABOUR-MUNN
4. Link to Scholarship Advertisement: https://study.uq.edu.au/study-options/phd-mphil-professional-doctorate/projects/after-future-work-platformised-labour-hotter-australia

Submit an EOI