PRR Project

Summary

Rationale NOVA FCSH seeks to expand its academic staff by appointing an Assistant Researcher in Empire and Global History, with particular expertise in areas such as labour, technology and materiality. In this IHC Chair position, the researcher is expected to develop groundbreaking research in the global history of modern empires from the perspective of material history. The engagement with materiality in this approach to the history of Empires also aims to bring forth processes and relations of power in the long duration. In particular, the chosen scientific profile should be able to consider the nexuses between the histories of technology, science, labor and the environment in a single narrative of colonialism, capitalist development and economic globalization. This approach involves a particular attention to material practices, including social forms of production, labour relations, technological conditions, the making of infrastructures and environmental impacts. The successful candidate will contribute to the research strategy of the IHC, particularly to the research groups “Economy and Society” and “Science, Technology and Environmental History”, whose research agendas combine several disciplinary fields covered by this profile. She/he will also participate in the development of the Associated Laboratory IN2PAST by contributing to the definition of thematic lines such as “Science and Technology for Cultural Heritage” and “Landscape, Territories and Cultural Heritage”. To the same extent, the researcher should contribute to research axes of NOVA FCSH, namely “Societies and Policies” – which tackles issues of inequality and combines global and local levels of power and government – and “Sustainable Territories” – in its commitment to issues of mobility, sustainability, territory, extraction and deterioration of ecosystems. Scientific profile At the intersection of a global history of empires and material history, this research profile explores recent openings in the field of historiography that highlight the role of practices and objects in modern phenomena such as imperial trade, colonial developmentalism, extractivism, as well as the formation of imperial and State institutions and the emergence of authoritarian high modernisms. In parallel, it considers the emergence of formal and informal knowledge practices that supported those phenomena, from statistics, census, and cartographies to technological innovations and forms of governmentality. Finally, it considers how things, practices and knowledge translated into new relations of power and forms of domination within western and colonized societies, as well as between empires and nation-states. These intersections respond to some of the most decisive theoretical options and research strategies developed within the IHC, including the search for the colonial genealogies of Portuguese economy and society, the critique of methodological nationalism and the engagement with connected history. In this sense, the researcher should be able to situate the specific case of the Portuguese Empire within a broader global history of empires, thus deepening the participation of the IHC in some of the most recent historiographical debates internationally. Such scientific profile also enables the successful candidate to provide postgraduate students at NOVA-FCSH the opportunity to became familiar with a wide range of topics with a particularly strong potential of internationalization, including History of Empire and Colonialism; Material History and Material Culture; History of Science, Technology and the Environment; and Global History. Key responsibilities In short, the researcher is expected to conduct the following research and academic tasks: o    To develop the field of material history in its relation to global history, while simultaneously situating the specific case of the Portuguese Empire within a broader history of empires; o    To explore the intersections between material history with the history of production, labour relations, technology and infrastructures; o    To contribute to the research life of the IHC, of the Associated Laboratory IN2PAST, and of NOVA FCSH; o    To consider the impact of material practices in modern phenomena in relation to the emergence of new forms of knowledge, power and domination; o    To question methodological nationalism and engage in connective, comparative and global frames of analysis; o    To engage in international debates on material history, global history of empires and its connection to the history of capitalism and globalization; o    To actively seek and apply for opportunities of national and international funding, and to guide research towards forms of dissemination in line with public policies of inclusive citizenship; o    To teach on several topics of international history, which may include the following: History of Empire and Colonialism; History of Science, Technology and the Environment; and Global History.