PhD Student

Job description

The History Department at Ghent University is recruiting 3 PhD researchers for the ERC Starting Grant Project ‘VIOLENCE WORK’ Creating and contesting colonial authority on the ground in Central Africa through everyday violence, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Gillian MATHYS.

1. Description of the project
VIOLENCE WORK is an in-depth explorarion of everyday violence in former Belgian Central Africa—Burundi, Congo, and Rwanda (19th-20th C). Though colonial violence has been studied widely, few have explored how everyday violence enabled colonialism and allowed it to persist (notable exceptions e.g. Moyd 2014; Muschaleck 2019). This project combines hitherto neglected source materials and a novel conceptual entry point—violence work(ers)—to foreground the everyday violent practices crucial to creating and maintaining the colonial state. The project’s core claim, is that violence work (a concept lend from critical police studies, see Seigel 2018) was not performed exclusively by formal violence workers—the men in uniform—but rather by a range of actors (colonizer and colonized) in- and outside the state. Everyday violence work includes not only direct acts of physical violence (e.g., whipping) but also other forms of punishment, such as incarceration and coercion through the threat of violence, as well as subtler forms of aggression forcing compliance (e.g., harassment) and the ways these different levels of violence reinforced each other. The aim is to open up new questions about the centrality of violence in theorizing, creating, and maintaining colonialism and the colonial state.

VIOLENCE WORK is an in-depth, multi-sited, transnational/regional comparative study of everyday colonial violence which will undergird further research on how colonial legacies persist and interact with local and new repertoires of violence work, contributing to dismantling persistent colonial myths about these regions and their inhabitants as inherently violent.

The 3 PhD-projects (‘Micro-histories of violence workers within networks of coercion, 1870-1970)’ are each concerned with a micro-history of violence in a given rural location, one project in Rwanda, one in Burundi, and one in Congo. The exact locality will be decided together with the PI and the team. Most importantly, these projects are aimed at obtaining a better bottom-up grasp of the broad landscape of violence work(ers) in different local contexts. This will enable researchers to observe and analyse the extent to which everyday violence work under Belgian colonialism was entangled with other European systems of colonial oppression and isolate those elements that were specific to the Belgian approach. A postdoc working on the meso-level in Rwanda and Burundi will be hired in a later stage.

You will work closely together with the other PhD-researchers and with the PI, and later postdoc. Integration of research within the team will be ensured through a database which will be used for exploratory analysis. The work of the PI encompasses the different geographic locations and has a structural, top-down and comparative approach. Together with the PI’s expertise developed over nearly a decade of fieldwork in rural eastern Congo and Rwanda, and archival research on the longer histories of these two countries, the PhDs will be able to work in a supportive research environment. There is also an advisory board with experts for each of the case-studies who will be involved sporadically in supportive roles, and who might also come in as co-supervisors.

PhD students will be expected to combine ethnographic and oral history research with analysis of a wide array of archival sources, drawing on research in African history, colonial history, anthropology, police studies, post-colonial studies etc.

2. Your tasks

• You will complete a PhD-thesis developing a micro-history of one locality in rural Rwanda, Burundi or Congo under the supervision of the Principal Investigator (specific location to be decided in collaboration with the PI and other team members). It is possible that this PhD will take a specific thematic focus along the way, and you will be encouraged to bring your own input to the table in developing the research questions within the context of the project. It is probable that additional co-supervisors will be involved for each of the PhDs.
• You will contribute to the outputs of VIOLENCEWORK, most notably by (co-)authoring publications; co-organizing workshops, conferences and lecture series; presenting your results at international workshops and conferences; and contributing to the project’s website and social media accounts. You will assist the team with administratve and organizational support.
• You will actively contribute to the activities of the research group Economies, Comparisons, Connections (ECC) and of the History Department at UGent in general.
• You will, where appropriate, share research data and collaborate with other team members through the shared database.

Job profile

3. What we are looking for

• You hold an MA degree in History, African Studies, Anthropology or a closely related field (to be completed by the start date of the position).
• You are highly motivated to work on your case study as an early career researcher and to be an active member of an international research team.
• Ideally, you are already acquainted with colonial history and/or the history of sub-Saharan Africa (not necessarily with the areas covered by your respective case study) and have relevant research experience in doing ethnographic research/oral history research and/or archival research
• You are capable of producing high-quality writen work in English and/or French.
• You have excellent reading skills in English and French
• You have very good communication skills
• You are fluent or have an excellent working knowledge in at least one of the following languages: Kirundi, Kinyarwanda, Swahili, Lingala
• You are willing to do part of your research in the respective African countries of your case study.
• For the case studies on Rwanda and Burundi, knowledge of German is an advantage, but not a requirement.
  
  

4. What we can offer you

• We offer a full-time position as a doctoral fellow, consisting of an initial period of 12 months, which - after a positive evaluation, will be extended to a total maximum of 48 months.
• Your contract will start on 01/11/2024 at the earliest.
• The fellowship amount is 100% of the net salary of an AAP member in equal family circumstances. The individual fellowship amount is determined by the Department of Personnel and Organization based on family status and seniority. A grant that meets the conditions and criteria of the regulations for doctoral fellowships is considered free of personal income tax.  Click here for more information about our salary scales. Please note that the gross salaries in this table need to be balanced with the current index.
• All Ghent University staff members enjoy a number of benefits, such as a wide range of training and education opportunities, 36 days of holiday leave (on an annual basis for a full-time job) supplemented by annual fixed bridge days, bicycle allowance and eco vouchers. Click here for a complete overview of all the staff benefits (in Dutch).
• You will be allocated office space and a laptop, and receive funding for archival research and fieldwork, as well as for attending workshops and conferences.
• You will join one of the largest history departments in the Benelux with a strong focus on African history, extant in three professorships and as many ERC projects.
• You will be a member of a cutting edge research group with international scholars funded by the prestigious European Research Council.
• You will also be part of the interdisciplinary research group Economies, Comparisons, Connectons hosted by the History Department.
• You will be automatically enrolled in the UGent Doctoral School, which organises specialist courses and transferable skills seminars, and offers general support for doctoral researchers at UGent.
• You will have the possibility to enrol in the Posthumus Institute PhD Training Programme, designed for PhD students working on Social and Economic History at universities in the Netherlands and Flanders.
• Ghent University assists with finding adequate childcare in Ghent, and runs several daycare facilities for children aged 3 months to 3 years. Click here for more information on childcare and schooling.
• For international scholars, Ghent University also offers guidance for moving to Belgium (including for family members) and for getting your work permit (if applicable). Click here for more information.
  
  

How to apply

5. Selection Process
Submit your application until August 15, 2024, 23h59 CET to gillian.mathys@UGent.be. Please put ‘VIOLENCEWORK’ + ‘PhD’ + the country of your case study (e.g. ‘VIOLENCEWORK PhD Burundi) in the title of your e-mail. We cannot accept applications sent late, sent incomplete, or sent to another email address.
Your application must include the following documents in a single PDF (not larger than 6 MB):

• A letter of motivation in which you state your interest in the position and how you fit the criteria.
• A CV that also includes the name, position, institution and email address of 2 referees, who may be contacted for recommendation.
• A copy of your MA degree, if already held.
• In case you hold a foreign degree in a language other than Dutch, French, German or English, please add a translation in one of these languages.
• A copy of your MA thesis. If the thesis is not yet complete, please submit a part of it (at least an abstract, the introduction and a full chapter) or another substantial piece of academic writing (such as BA thesis, MA research paper, publication, etc.).
  If your MA degree is not yet in hand, please submit your BA degree and evidence of the imminent completion of your MA on the start of your contract (such as an atestation by your supervisor).
  
  

For questions about this vacancy, please contact Prof. Gillian Mathys: gillian.mathys@UGent.be.