项目介绍

2025年1月10日

Function

We are looking for  a PhD researcher who  will contribute to reconstructing and explaining long-term patterns of deforestation in Malaysia in the context of a larger research project entitled Tragedy of the Tropics: Colonialism, Commodities and Commons in Southeast Asian Deforestation since 1850, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO).

The project aims to provide a better understanding of the structural conditions that have hindered, and continue to hinder, the transition to more sustainable land and forest use and to assess the factors affecting long-run changes in deforestation rates at the local level. Project members will use GIS (Geographic Information Systems) and digitized colonial topographic and vegetation maps to develop new spatial estimates of forest area in Southeast Asia across different benchmark years since ca. 1850.

The project explains changes in forest area over time by relating it to developments in global trade, the implementation of colonial and post-colonial policies, changes to local land rights, and patterns of socio-economic and political inequality.  As one of the PhDs in this project, you will focus on regional variations in long-run deforestation across Malaysia and explain those patterns through a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses of historical source materials.

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• develop your own research proposal;
• use GIS drawing on old maps to reconstruct forest area across Malaysia since ca. 1850;
• use social scientific theories, quantitative and qualitative research methods to explain variation in deforestation rates over time and across space;
• present your work at international conferences and seminars ;
• write a PhD thesis.

You will work here
The research is embedded within the chair Economic and Environmental History which is led by Prof. Ewout Frankema. You will be co-supervised by Dr Pim de Zwart. The Economic and Environmental History Group is a thriving group which aims to provide temporal depth to societal debates and social theories on sustainable and equitable welfare development.

Function Requirements

You are an ambitious and enthusiastic scholar, and a team player devoted to research and education in a highly international and interdisciplinary academic environment.

You also possess:

• a successfully completed MA/MSc degree in history, economics, forestry, or any other social science with a clear historical character (or about to get it);
• quantitative and qualitative research skills and a great willingness to develop them further;
• strong motivation to develop your own research design;
• ability to work independently;
• Spanish and Filipino language skills, and prior experience with GIS, are a plus.

For this position your command of the English language is expected to be at C1 level. Sometimes it is necessary to submit an internationally recognised Certificate of Proficiency in the English Language. More information can be found here.

Contactinformation

For more information about this position, please contact Dr Pim de Zwart, Associate Professor by e-mail: pim.dezwart@wur.nl.

For more information about the procedure, please contact Noorien Abbas, corporate recruiter, recruitment.ssg@wur.nl.