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.

Wat ga je doen?
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 2: Tunis/Tehran, which will look into the dynamics of public health cooperation in these cities. In this position, you will:

• conduct research within the period of appointment in the Netherlands as well as at archives in Tunis/Tehran, Nantes, Paris, and London, among others;
• publish peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters;
• help with the organisation of an international conference;
• help organise workshops on sanitary internationalism in Tunis and Tehran;
• participate in project meetings and closely collaborate with the other members of the research team;
• help set up and manage 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 (Tangier)
• 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 and speaking skills in one or more European languages (especially French and Russian).
• You have very good reading skills in Arabic and/or Persian.
• You have archival research experience in Tunis and Western Europe (preferably also in Iran and Russia).
• You are flexible to travel for this position.
• You are a team player and an independent thinker.

We offer:

• a position for 38-42 months;
• 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.

In addition to the terms of employment laid down in the CAO NU, Utrecht University has a number of schemes and facilities of its own for employees. This includes schemes facilitating professional development, leave schemes and schemes for sports and cultural activities, as well as discounts on software and other IT products. We also offer access to additional employee benefits through our Terms of Employment Options Model. In this way, we encourage our employees to continue to invest in their growth. For more information, please visit Working at Utrecht University.

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