Postdoctoral Research Associate in Geography

Department of Geography

Grade 7: - £35,333 - £37,474 per annum
Fixed Term - Full Time
Contract Duration: 33 months
Contracted Hours per Week: 35
Closing Date: 09-Dec-2022, 7:59:00 AM
Disclosure and Barring Service Requirement: Not Applicable.

Durham University  

Durham University is one of the world's top universities with strengths across the Arts and Humanities, Sciences and Social Sciences. We are home to some of the most talented scholars and researchers from around the world who are tackling global issues and making a difference to people's lives.

The University sits in a beautiful historic city where it shares ownership of a UNESCO World Heritage Site with Durham Cathedral, the greatest Romanesque building in Western Europe. A collegiate University, Durham recruits outstanding students from across the world and offers an unmatched wider student experience.

Less than 3 hours north of London, and an hour and a half south of Edinburgh, County Durham is a region steeped in history and natural beauty. The Durham Dales, including the North Pennines Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, are home to breathtaking scenery and attractions. Durham offers an excellent choice of city, suburban and rural residential locations. The University provides a range of benefits including pension and childcare benefits and the University’s Relocation Manager can assist with potential schooling requirements.

Durham University seeks to promote and maintain an inclusive and supportive environment for work and study that assists all members of our University community to reach their full potential. Diversity brings strength and we welcome applications from across the international, national and regional communities that we work with and serve.

The Department

The Department of Geography at Durham comprises 68 academic staff (approximately equally divided between physical and human geography), a graduate school of around 100 research students, around 40 taught postgraduate students and more than 650 undergraduates. The Department is well supported with technical staff, including a cartography unit, and administrative staff.

The Department was ranked joint first for research quality among UK geography departments in REF2021 and third for research power. With 54% of work assessed as being in the highest category, it produced the largest number of world-leading (4*) publications in the country. The most recent QS rankings for Geography placed Durham 7th overall in the world, its 5th year in the top ten, and 1st for citations in the discipline. The department is recurrently ranked in the top handful of programmes in the UK by various league tables; in 2016, we were ranked 2nd in the Times Good University Guide and 3rd in both the Complete University Guide and the Guardian University Guide.

Our aim is to sustain and support hubs of leadership in geographical scholarship – broadly conceived. We will maintain our reputation for theoretical and conceptual innovation so that we are shaping and leading debates globally.

We will continue to engage concepts and materials from across disciplinary boundaries to renew geographical scholarship and bring geographical perspectives to bear in other domains. We work across every continent and most major oceans, and embrace the full diversity of methods and data available to the discipline.

We are further developing our core undergraduate programmes and will be recruiting world leading staff accordingly to ensure these programmes continue to offer the highest quality of education that develop students with skills to advance scholarly and public debates to which geography is central. The quality of our undergraduate students, and the degree programmes which ensue, combine with our large graduate school to provide a teaching experience for staff that is truly excellent.

The Role

The Department of Geography at Durham University seeks to appoint a Postdoctoral Research Associate for 33 months to work on the research project ‘Occupation Debris: Participatory Practices and Decolonisation of Archaeology in Palestine-Israel’. Occupation Debris is led by Dr Noam Leshem and funded under the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC), and runs from January 15th 2023 to December 31st 2025. The project seeks new ways to enable displaced communities, who are physically unable to access their ancestral lands, to renew a sense of ownership over their tangible cultural heritage and assert their agency over its use. The successful candidate will join an existing team of researchers in the UK and the Middle East, and will lead a participatory research process with members of a displaced Palestinian community in Lebanon. The process will make use of an emerging material archive from the first-ever archaeological excavation of a depopulated Palestinian village, and will work closely with members of the community to consider how this archive might be used. This will be carried out with close collaboration with the Institute for Palestine Studies in Beirut, the project partner in Lebanon.

The aim of Occupation Debris project is to answer two core questions: (1) How can displaced communities regain access to hard-to-reach sites of material heritage, and assert agency over its future use? (2) Can participatory research open new possibilities for collaborative knowledge production and dialogue, specifically in environments that are still contending with conflict and enmity?

The post holder will help the PI and other members of the team to design a 2-year participatory process with community members in Lebanon, and will be responsible for leading and executing a series of workshops, outreach and dissemination activities.

Responsibilities: 

• To understand and convey material of a specialist or highly technical nature to the team or group of people through presentations and discussions that leads to the presentation of research papers in conferences and publications.
• To prepare and deliver presentations on research outputs/activities to audiences which may include: research sponsors, academic and non-academic audiences.
• To publish high quality outputs, including papers for submission to peer reviewed journals and papers for presentation at conferences and workshops under the direction of the Principal Investigator or Grant-holder.
• To assist with the development of research objectives and proposals.
• To conduct individual and collaborative research projects under the direction of the Principal Investigator or Grant-holder.
• To work with the Principal Investigator or Grant-holder and other colleagues in the research group, as appropriate, to identify areas for research, develop new research methods and extend the research portfolio.
• To deal with problems that may affect the achievement of research objectives and deadlines by discussing with the Principal Investigator or Grant-holder and offering creative or innovative solutions.
• To liaise with research colleagues and make internal and external contacts to develop knowledge and understanding to form relationships for future research collaboration.
• To plan and manage own research activity, research resources in collaboration with others and contribute to the planning of research projects.
• To deliver training in research techniques/approaches to peers, visitors and students as appropriate.
• To be involved in student supervision, as appropriate, and assist with the assessment of the knowledge of students.
• To contribute to fostering a collegial and respectful working environment which is inclusive and welcoming and where everyone is treated fairly with dignity and respect.
• To engage in wider citizenship to support the department and wider discipline.
• To engage in continuing professional development by participation in the undergraduate or postgraduate teaching programmes or by membership of departmental committees, etc. and by attending relevant training and development courses. 
• To work with the rest of the Occupation Debris team to co-ordinate the successful management of the project and the timely production of deliverables.
• To help design and lead a participatory programme of activities with participants in Lebanon and develop pathways for dissemination.
• To conduct literature reviews on decolonial practice, cultural history and settler colonial societies.

This post is fixed term for 33 months given that funding for the project, which runs until 31st December 2025. Successful applicants will, ideally, be in post by 1st March 2023. The post-holder will be required to travel internationally throughout the period of the post.

The post-holder is employed to work on research/a research project which will be led by another colleague. Whilst this means that the post-holder will not be carrying out independent research in his/her own right, the expectation is that they will contribute to the advancement of the project, through the development of their own research ideas/adaptation and development of research protocols.

Successful applicants will, ideally, be in post by 1st March 2023 

How to Apply  

For informal enquiries please contact Dr Noam Leshem ([email protected] )  All enquiries will be treated in the strictest confidence. 

We prefer to receive applications online via the Durham University Vacancies Site. https://www.dur.ac.uk/jobs/ . As part of the application process, you should provide details of 3 (preferably academic/research) referees and the details of your current line manager so that we may seek an employment reference.

Applications are particularly welcome from women and black and minority ethnic candidates, who are under-represented in academic posts in the University

What to Submit  

All applicants are asked to submit: 

• A CV and covering letter which details your experience, strengths and potential in the requirements set out above;
• A writing sample (eg published or draft academic paper).

Next Steps  

The assessment for the post will include a review of candidates suitability for the role based on experience, skills and track record. Shortlisted candidates will be invited for interview and assessment in early December.

The Requirements  

Essential:

Qualifications

• A PhD (or be close to submission) in Geography or a related subject, including for example Anthropology, Sociology, Area Studies, Development Studies, Political Science, and Archaeology.

Experience

• Experience in conducting high quality academic research.
• Demonstrable ability to write material of a quality commensurate with publication in highly-ranked journals.
• Demonstrable ability to present research papers at international conferences and communicate complex information to specialists and within the wider academic community.
• Demonstrable ability to plan and manage independent research.
• Demonstrable ability to write material of a publishable quality as first author and to work to deadlines
• A demonstrated record of curiosity-driven research and innovation.

Skills

• Demonstrable ability to successfully prepare for and conduct independent field research.
• Demonstrable ability to carry out fieldwork in Arabic, including interviews, workshops and review of written sources.
• Experience in the use of qualitative research methods, especially participatory practices and creative methods.
• Knowledge or experience of other Occupation Debris methods (particularly ethnography, archival research, focus groups, community-led research).
• Knowledge of relevant methods for analysing & interpreting qualitative data.
• Demonstrable ability to work cooperatively as part of a team, including participating in research meetings.
• Ability to work independently on own initiative and to strict deadlines.
• Excellent interpersonal and communication skills, with the ability to engage with a range of groups across a variety of forums.

Desirable:

Experience

• A track record of research in Lebanon, as well as familiarity with research repositories and networks.
• Strong publication record in peer-reviewed journals, commensurate with stage of career.
• A track record of presenting research at conferences, symposia, or meetings, commensurate with stage of career.
• Demonstrable ability to develop research proposals and designs in collaboration with other academics.
• Experience in decolonial and cultural heritage debates.