Margot Kersing's PhD research is about Big Data in the social domain; a qualitative ethnographic study commissioned by the Centre for BOLD Cities and the Erasmus School of Health Policy Management (ESHPM). This PhD research aims to explore the way in which professionals -in an environment where new norms and rules are emerging with regard to data control- pursue different public values, and what impact this has on the decisions and results in practice. Margot studied at Leiden University and obtained a master's degree in Public Administration and Political Philosophy.
Could you tell me more about your academic background and expertise?
My background is in Public Administration and Political Philosophy. After completing two master’s degrees at Leiden University, I worked for a couple of years as a teacher in public administration, focusing on courses about philosophy and ethics, before starting my PhD in April 2021.
Already since my bachelor’s I have been passionate about ethical dilemmas and tensions between the citizens and the state. During my studies, I became more and more interested in street-level bureaucrats, civil servants that are directly in contact with citizens. Street-level bureaucrats form the connection between the ‘system world’ of the government and the ‘real life world’ of the citizens. It is in that contact between the system and the real life, where all the logically planned out ideas and policies that were designed by government officials suddenly do not seem to work very well in real life. Instead, there are misunderstandings, tensions, and there is distrust because bureaucrats operate in such a different context than citizens.
Through the childcare benefits scandal and all kinds of other affairs, but also personal frustrating experiences with filling out many useless forms at the municipality, I became more and more interested in the role of data in the social domain. When I started writing my PhD proposal, I really got into the use of data, big data tools and algorithms and their impact on street-level bureaucrats: on their work, their professional role but also very importantly how (big) data changed their interactions with citizens.
Although my interest in that specific topic emerged gradually, since childhood I have been concerned with the vulnerability of certain citizens, although back then I would not have formulated it in such terms, of course. I grew up in a so-called Vogelaarwijk[1] in Rotterdam and already as a child I was very aware that some of my fellow classmates did not own a winter coat or did not bring lunch to school. I always wondered why that was, if they got help, and later what the role of the government was in this. This sparked my interest in public administration – especially because when I went to high school and later to university as the first in my family, all the children there did live in very nice houses and had a lot of money. These extremes left me with a feeling of unease. Coming from that background has definitely shaped my academic interests.
The Centre makes it very easy to connect to people with other academic backgrounds and to hear their different perspectives."
Do you want to read the whole interview, please visit the website of Centre for BOLD Cities, Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Universities.
- PhD student