Postdoc: History of Global North-South Public Health Cooperation (Tangier)

Interested in researching the history of global north-south public health cooperation in a vibrant team? Join us at the ERC-funded project COOPERATION "Fighting Pandemics from Below: Global North-South Public Health Cooperation in the Middle East and North Africa, 1792-1942" as postdoctoral researcher.

Your job
As a postdoctoral researcher you will be working on a sub-project within the Consolidator Grant project COOPERATION (2024-2029) funded by the European Research Council (ERC) and directed by Dr Ozan Ozavci (Principal Investigator, PI) at the department of History and Art History.

The COOPERATION project will recapture the lost archives and historical knowledge of international public health cooperation between the ‘global north’ and the ‘global south’ by analysing its first and longest-lasting instances: the sanitary councils in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Established in Tangier, Alexandria, Tunis, Istanbul and Tehran, these unprecedented institutions strategised against waves of epidemics and pandemics between the 1790s and the 1940s. Their European, American and native co-founders invented new models for fighting pandemics from below and stopping the diseases in their tracks. They continually strove to overcome the familiar barriers to cooperation posed by inter-imperial competition in a multipolar world, economic inequities, protests against quarantine restrictions and racial and Orientalist biases, among others. COOPERATION project will write an entangled history of health cooperation, by shifting the focus from top-down to bottom-up processes. Consulting archival sources in Europe, MENA, and North America, it will determine the historical preconditions for effective international public health cooperation.

You will be responsible for sub-project 1: Morocco, which will look into the dynamics of public health cooperation in the city of Tangier. You will:

• conduct research within the period of appointment in the Netherlands as well as at archives in Rabat, Tangier, Nantes, Madrid, Lisbon, and Washington, among others;
• publish peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters;
• help organise a workshop on sanitary internationalism in Morocco;
• participate in project meetings and closely collaborate with the other members of the research team;
• help set up project data;
• help with knowledge dissemination activities of the project;
• present research findings at national and international workshops and conferences.

Within this project, we also have vacancies for another postdoc position and 2 PhD positions. Take a look at:

• Postdoc: History of Global North-South Public Health Cooperation (Tunis/Tehran)
• 2 PhD Positions: History of Global North-South Public Health Cooperation

We are looking for a colleague who brings multiple of the following skills and qualifications:

• You hold a doctoral degree in a relevant field (e.g. nineteenth- and early twentieth-century international history, imperial history, history of medicine, Middle Eastern/North African history, etc.) at the time of appointment.
• You have a proven track record of academic publications and public outreach.
• You have excellent command of spoken and written English.
• You have very good reading skills in one or more European languages (especially French, German, Spanish and/or Portuguese).
• You have very good reading skills in Arabic.
• You have archival research experience in North Africa, Europe and/or the United States.
• You are flexible to travel for this position.
• You are a team player and an independent thinker.

We offer:

• a position for two years;
• a working week of 30 to 32 hours and a gross monthly salary of € 4.332,- in the case of full-time employment (salary scale 11 under the Collective Labour Agreement for Dutch Universities (CAO NU);
• 8% holiday pay and 8.3% year-end bonus;
• a pension scheme, partially paid parental leave and flexible terms of employment based on the CAO NU.

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To apply, please send the following documents via the 'apply now' button:

• your curriculum vitae;
• a motivation letter;
• a two-page statement in which you clearly explain how you intend to contribute to the project (please attach the statement to your motivation letter).

The candidates who will be invited for an interview will be asked to provide two reference letters sent directly by their referees. The first round of interviews will take place online in the week of 15 April 2024. The second round is expected to be in person and take place in the week of 29 April 2024.

The expected start date of the position is 1 September 2024. It is possible to start earlier upon agreement with the PI.