Justus Uitermark

🚨 We are entering the AI society.

After two decades of platforms reshaping markets, communication, and governance, a new shift is underway: AI is transforming society.

What should we expect from the 'AI society'? 🧵

📄 Our new paper faces this question:
osf.io/preprints/so...

You can now submit abstracts for the RC21 conference, which will take place in Vienna on 20–22 July. Check out the sessions: rc21-vienna2026.org/call-for-abs.... If you work on cities and digital technologies, consider session #10, “The Digital Frontier,” organized by @ayonadatta.bsky.social and me.

It's been really interesting to dive deep into these literatures and to learn more about the intellectual histories of urban studies.

By the end of the class, some students really like the Chicago School, most don’t. But I believe both proponents and critics have a lot to gain from a closer engagement with human ecology. A closer engagement with its various lineages can be inspiring or lead to more sophisticated critiques.

I believe this is important because the Chicago legacy includes some powerful insights. It’s also essential for understanding the genealogy of critical approaches, which are often articulated in opposition to the Chicago School.

The paper grew out of conversations in my Urban Debates course, part of the Research Master’s in Urban Studies at the University of Amsterdam. In the course and the paper, I try to take the Chicago sociologists seriously.

Dialogues in Urban Research recently published my new paper: “Parsing the Legacy of the Chicago School: Towards a Critical Human Ecology.” journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Vacancy — PhD Position on Improving Social Media Using Large Language Models The Institute for Logic, Language and Computation (ILLC) at the University of Amsterdam is inviting applications for a fully funded PhD position in the NWO VIDI project "Improving Social Media Using L...

🚨 PhD Position at the University of Amsterdam 🚨

Join my team as a computer scientist / computational social scientist working on LLMs, social media, and politics.

We offer freedom, impact, and an inspiring environment at one of Europe's leading universities.

🔗 werkenbij.uva.nl/en/vacancies...

Nederland laat Palestijnen bewust verhongeren.
Dat is geen hyperbool, het is de realiteit.

Als staat heeft Nederland zowel een juridische als morele plicht om het internationaal humanitair recht te handhaven. Niets doen, is kiezen. Niets doen, is medeplichtig zijn.

I thoroughly enjoyed "Long Live Queer Nightlife" by @aminghaziani.bsky.social and learned a lot (including that sociology suffers from a "joy deficit"). Unfortunately, I can't attend this lecture. But if you are in Amsterdam, you can, and you should.

De Rijksoverheid zoekt: Programmaleider Sociale Samenhang Programmaleider Sociale Samenhang in Den Haag voor 36 uur bij Sociaal en Cultureel Planbureau

📢 Ben of ken jij iemand die het @scponderzoek.bsky.social kan versterken? En draag jij straks bij aan het bepalen van onze inhoudelijke koers? Wij zoeken een programmaleider Sociale Samenhang. Leuke collega’s, belangrijk en mooi onderzoek én gegarandeerd impact! Deadline 21 mei tinyurl.com/2me6f676

Housing as a driver of inequality - AMCIS Join our seminar to explore how housing drives health and economic inequality, with insights from global experts Rebecca Bentley and Susan Smith.

Housing as a driver of inequality

On June 4 (4pm), Amsterdam Centre for Inequality Studies (AMCIS) & Centre for Urban Studies (CUS) present a seminar this topic with profs Rebecca Bentley (Melbourne) & Susan Smith (Cambridge).

Join us! Info and registration here:
amcis.uva.nl/content/even...

Op Bevrijdingsdag maakt Israël bekend wat allang te voorzien was: het voornemen om heel Gaza te bezetten. Geen rode lijn voor de Nederlandse regering. Hier is vooral ophef over protesten die ‘onze’ feestvreugde zouden verstoren.

Nevertheless, our study does suggest that there may be overlooked forces pushing cities toward greater equality. This is a hopeful for urbanites and an intriguing for scholars of inequalities and cities.

We do a lot of hedging in the paper. Our data doesn’t capture all forms of inequality nor the impacts of long-term threats like climate change, so we caution that our findings shouldn’t be read as a validation of current policies. Survey data come with many limitations.

Here’s what surprised us: Inequalities declined in most cities on most indicators. The middle class grew. Living standards converged. Educational inequality decreased. Although there are exceptions, the trend has been towards greater equality. The literature had not prepared us for for this finding.

We can’t offer a definitive answer since there are many ways to conceptualize and understand inequality. And despite Fred's heroic efforts to construct a comprehensive dataset with @ipums.bsky.social survey data, we lack consistent historical data.

Has inequality grown or declined in global south Cities? Trends in occupational structure, education, and living standards Urban inequality is widely debated but few studies examine developments over time and across cities. In this contribution, we develop a novel approach…

Has inequality grown or declined in cities of the Global South? Together with Frederico R. Ramos, I tried to answer this question. Using a sample of 59 cities across three continents, we examined inequalities in labor markets, education, and living standards:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Home On the rise of a digital modernity

Why does everything suddenly feel so unsettled?

The economy, technology, geopolitics—everything seems to change

It's more than a vibe shift. It's epistemic.

In our new book, @uitermark.bsky.social and I explore this shift—

and argue we're entering Digital Modernity 🧵

www.seeinglikeaplatform.com

Seeing Like a Platform. An Inquiry into the Condition of Digital Modernity The proposition at the heart of the book “Seeing Like a Platform” by Petter Törnberg and Justus Uitermark is that the digital era into which we are entering signifies the rise of a new epistemology of...

On Wednesday, 16 April, at 17:00 I am delighted to co-organize a presentation with Justus Uitermark @uitermark.bsky.social about his and Petter Törnberg's new book Seeing Like a Platform at @weizenbauminstitut.bsky.social.

Please register here: www.weizenbaum-institut.de/news/detail/...

Looking forward to our AMCIS Kick-Off event on 10 April - join us in Amsterdam for a discussion on wealth and class inequality with @norawaitkus.bsky.social and @mikesavagelse.bsky.social
@aissr.bsky.social

'Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.' H.G. Wells

#doeheniet

@woinactie.bsky.social

Social Media Imaginaries and the City: How the Attention Economy Is Reshaping Urban Built Environments - Petter Törnberg, 2025 Social media are becoming a growing presence in our cities, filtering our experience of urban place and enabling locations to “go viral.” This article examines ...

Great article by @pettertornberg.bsky.social on how investors in Rio boost the online visibility of their establishments. The Instagrammable props, such as neon letters and graffiti, are merely the most striking expressions of a profound reshaping of places
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Beirut Urban Lab - Call for Applications: Winter Institute on “Urban, Ecological and Infr

Co-organizing this Winter Institute with dream team Sarah El Kazzaz, Rafeef Ziadah, Azadeh Mashayekhi & Noura Wahby.

Pls consider applying if eligible and kindly share.

beiruturbanlab.com/en/Details/2...

The Etic - Vreemd Gedrag Verklaard Podcast · Roanne van Voorst en Michiel Baas · Waarom doen mensen dat? Haatberichten schrijven op sociale media; zoveel aan hun lichaam laten veranderen dat ze steeds meer op buitenaardse wezens lijke...

Luistertip! De nieuwe podcast van Roanne van Voorst en Michiel Baas "The Etic", over het begrijpen van de rare gedragingen van onszelf en de medemens. En dan vooral de episode 1, Je hele leven op Insta zetten. Want daar kom ik ook even aan het woord over de betekenis van Instagram voor jonge mensen.

Intriguing to read how local traditions, cultural icons, and social customs are created or revamped through (partly orchestrated, partly serendipitous) social media trends.

"Central to the making of a wanghong city is a
series of strategic actions involving speculation, hedging, and/or opportunity-taking—terms that are all too familiar to tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists"

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

A fascinating study by Sheng Zou on wanghong urbanism, revealing the speculative investments and creative work behind the online prominence of places: journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Race to the Future? Reimagining the Default Settings of Technology & Society - AISSR On Friday 21 March, International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) is honored to welcome Professor Ruha Benjamin for her AI...

Pleased to accounce that @ruha9.bsky.social will deliver the upcoming AISSR lecture: "Race to the Future? Reimagining the default settings of technology & society". On March 21, in Amsterdam. Abstract and registration: aissr.uva.nl/content/even...

The Department of Sociology at Koç University seeks to recruit an Assistant Professor with expertise in quantitative methods and computational social science: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/29478