(Source: Universiteit Leiden)
We learned of four positions at
Leiden University within the new ERC-funded project “Challenging the Liberal
World Order from Within: The Invisible History of the United Nations and the
Global South”.
The three PhD projects are:
PhD project 1: African
Activism at the UN
This project will be carried out by a candidate with expertise in African history. Knowledge of the French language is essential, knowledge of relevant African and other languages will be an advantage.
This PhD project will examine the
contributions of 2-3 small to large states in Eastern and Western Africa
(Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, Tanzania) in the thematic areas. They will define
what perceptions of the UN were, the relationship of these countries to others
in the region and internationally (especially considering the interplay between
Pan-Africanism and African nationalism) and what their role was in developing
agendas for reform. This project will trace the contribution of these countries
to developments in the area of decolonization, economic development and human
rights and should draw connections between the selected cases and other actors
in Asia and Latin America. In particular, the project should highlight
different African conceptions of decolonization and show how these played out
in the general debates at the UN, providing a precursor for economic
development and human rights. The PhD researcher will conduct relevant research
in national African archives, UN archives and relevant archives of non-state
actors such as the African Union in Addis Ababa.
PhD project 2: Beyond Bandung,
Asia at the UN
This project will be carried out by a candidate with expertise in the history of Asia and/or South-East Asia. Knowledge of the relevant languages will be an advantage.
This PhD project will examine the
contributions of 2-3 small to large states in Asia/South East Asia (China,
India, Indonesia, Thailand) in the thematic areas. The research must include
either China or India (with a preference for both) among other countries. The
project will examine the contributions of these actors to decolonization, economic
sovereignty and human rights generally, before focusing on one key aspect. In
particular, the project should examine how the role of Asian states evolved
from the Bandung moment in 1955, to their strong role in contesting the meaning
of development in the 1970s. The candidate will conduct relevant research in
national Asian and UN archives, especially ECOSOC and UNCTAD and the Nehru
Memorial Museum and Library in Delhi and the archives of the Economic
Commission for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok among other non-state archives.
PhD project 3: Latin America
and the UN
This project will be carried out by a candidate with expertise in the history of Latin America. Knowledge of the Spanish language will be essential, knowledge of Portuguese will be an advantage.
This PhD project will examine the
contributions of 2-3 small to large states in Latin America (Argentina, Brazil,
Chile, Ecuador) and the Caribbean nations. The project will analyze the
contributions of the selected actors to decolonization, economic development
and human rights. In particular, it will investigate how Latin American actors
forged alliances with African and Asian counterparts at the UN around issues of
economic development. It will trace the emergence of the agenda for the
creation of UNCTAD and examine how this was transformed into a wider crusade
for the NIEO. It will also investigate how meanings of human rights were
contested and examine in particular the contributions of the actors to the
creation of the ICESCR. The candidate will conduct research in relevant
national archives and the Economic Commission for Latin American and the
Caribbean in Santiago. They will also conduct research in the archives of
ECOSOC, UNCTAD, Frondizi Archives, Centro de Estudios Nacionales, Buenos Aires and
Raúl Prebisch Papers, Prebisch Foundation, Buenos Aires, among others.
The Post Doc project:
Postdoc researcher: The United
Nations as a Dynamic Globalizing Force
Project description
The main aim of this project is
to reveal and unravel the invisible histories of the UN, transcending the
dominant Western perspective to recover the historical agency of Global South
actors. The research will investigate how the UN has both facilitated and
limited their role in shaping global order. This will be an important
contribution to current debates about UN reform and assessments of its
performance, safeguarding against further marginalization of these actors.
Within this overarching project, a 4,5 year postdoc position is available: The
United Nation as a Dynamic Globalizing Force
The Postdoc will develop two
parts of the main project. The first, essential to the overall research
project, is a categorization of changes to the UN, keeping track of what
structural, methodological and institutional changes were produced in the years
under study. The second is a research element which analyzes the reception of
Global South initiatives in Britain, France, Germany and the United States
which is important to show how changes to the UN were perceived and what were
the reactions to, and the success and failures of, efforts to alter political
dynamics and redefine norms relating to decolonization (especially questions of
contested sovereignty), economic sovereignty and human rights (especially the
advancement of economic and social rights).
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