Positions
PhD Colonial Environmental History (19th Century Dutch East Indies) (Utrecht University) – deadline 17 May 2024
Project supervisors Professors Roberta Biasillo, Roel Frakking, and co-supervisors Professors Ido de Haanand Liesbeth van de Griftare looking for a PhD candidate on ‘Colonial Environmental History (19th Century Dutch East Indies)’.
The PhD candidate will be working on a project titled ‘Conservation before conservationism: Resilient environments in Dutch East Indies in the 19th century’ funded by the PhD Programme Faculty of Humanities. This project explores the introduction and development of the system of plantation and enforced labour – known as the Cultivation System – on the island of Java under Dutch rule between 1830 and 1870. The candidate is expected to compare environments that were transformed by such system and environments that resisted to it, and identify key factors able to explain the differentiated output. The overarching goal of the project is to look at local-imperial dynamics and find out strategies that determined the non-transformation of Indonesian nature. As such, the project is associated with the Strategic Theme Pathways to Sustainability of Utrecht University.
The PhD is expected to start 1 September 2024, applications should be submitted ultimately 17 May 2024 via Utrecht University’s website.
