Two Student Assistant Positions for Projects on Slave Trade in Maritime Asia - IISH

The International Institute of Social History (IISH-KNAW) has vacancies for two Student Assistants (0,4 fte) for projects on slave trade in Asia for a period of one year.

The Project Global Business of Slave Trade studies the main patterns of the Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish slave trades in the Indian Ocean, Indonesian Archipelago, and the South China Sea. It will do so by examining in detail how and by whom were these commercial flows and operations organized, who gained and lost by being involved in these activities, and what participation in these commercial streams meant for the economies of these European Empires in Asia. The database project Exploring Slave Trade in Asia (ESTA) reconstructs the historical slave trade in the wider Indian Ocean, Indonesian Archipelago and East Asia.

What will be the Student Assistant candidate tasks?

The Student Assistants will work as part of the research team to:

• Enter and curate data on slave trade, business, actors, etc. in the ESTA database.
• Collect digital source materials.
• Create ground truth transcriptions and layout for Spanish and Portuguese digital colonial archival material (to train handwritten text recognition models).
• Annotate transcriptions for entity (and event) detection.
• Assist in organizing project events and other tasks.

The International Institute of Social History (IISG-KNAW) is an Academy research institute. IISG is one of the most prestigious social history research institutes worldwide. It examines how work and labour relations have developed globally over time. To support its research, it collects archives and data from all over the world. The relationship between its research and its data and archive collections contributes substantially to the institute’s unique nature.

Terms of employment
Depending on education and experience the minimum salary is 2.925 and the maximum salary is 2.981 gross per month for a full-time appointment (scale SA cao Nederlandse Universiteiten/KNAW). This is exclusive of 8% vacation allowance, 8.3% year-end bonus, travel allowance, internet allowance, home working allowance and pension accrual with ABP.

The KNAW offers its staff an excellent package of secondary benefits. A package that meets the different needs of employees depending on their stage of life, lifestyle or career ambitions. For example, by working an extra two hours a week, it is possible to increase the number of days off from 29 to 41 days a year (with full-time employment).

For a complete overview of the terms of employment, please refer to the web page: werken bij de KNAW.

Applying for a Certificate of Good Conduct can be part of the employment procedure.

Diversity & Inclusion
The KNAW considers a working environment in which everyone feels welcome and appreciated of great importance. A working environment in which attention is paid to individual quality and where development opportunities are paramount. Together we strive for an inclusive culture in which we embrace differences. We would therefore like to invite candidates who want to contribute to this through their background and experience. In the event of equal suitability, preference will be given to the candidate who thus enhances diversity within the Academy.

We will not respond to any supplier enquiries based on this job advertisement.