Job: Research Officer - Global Soldiers in the Cold War: Making Southern Africa’s Liberation Armies
University of Oxford
An exciting opportunity has arisen for a Research Officer carrying out research for the Leverhulme Research Project (Ref RPG-2019-198), which will produce histories of cold-war era ‘global soldiers’, focused on southern Africa’s liberation armies and their Soviet interlocutors. The project will use the life stories of rank-and-file veterans, and produce book-length studies as well as scholarly articles. The post is full-time, for 3 years, commencing 1 January 2020, and is based at the Oxford Department of International Development.
The postholder will carry out oral historical and ethnographic research on Soviet veterans of southern Africa’s Cold-War era wars under the direction of the PI, Professor Jocelyn Alexander. S/he will collaborate and publish with other team members, and undertake other tasks as directed.
You will hold, or be close to completion of, a relevant PhD/DPhil in history, anthropology, politics or a cognate discipline, together with relevant research experience. You will possess the linguistic and methodological skills necessary to conduct oral historical interviews and carry out ethnographic work with Soviet veterans of southern African wars in Russia and translate Russian language texts and transcripts. You will have the ability to manage your own academic research and associated activities and to contribute ideas for new research projects and research income generation. You will possess excellent communication skills, including the ability to write for publication and present research proposals and results. Ideally, you will also have experience of independently managing a discrete area of a research project and of website construction and management and of working with photographs, film and memoir.
Applications for this vacancy are to be made online. You will be required to upload a supporting statement and CV as part of your online application.
The closing date for applications is 12.00 noon on 28 August 2019.
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