Project Summary

Through the example of Latin American oil, the aim of the present project is to highlight the mechanisms that led post-colonial (ie. formerly colonized and/or imperially dominated) worlds to adopt fossil fuelled economic models. Recent historiography, based on European and North American examples, has discussed how the global rise of fossil fuels resulted from locally motivated politics that unintentionally participated in making modern economies a climate change driver. As a consequence, a debate about the involvement of the Global South in the energy transitions that fed the Anthropocene in the 20th century is currently emerging. Latin American countries possibly played a pioneering role in this process by tying the transition of their economies towards fossil fuels with projects of national development and emancipation. The key in this history was petroleum, which Latin Americans used as a lever to strengthen their political sovereignty as well as their position in the global economy.

How did patterns of fossil dependence emerge and develop in a peripheral world region such as Latin America and how does this qualify Latin American connections to a global historical trend of energy development, exhaustion of mineral resources, and ultimately climate change? How can historians study and learn from the agency, expectations and hopes of actors of the Global South regarding energy questions, without making them responsible for processes of pollution in which their historically cumulated share is statistically small? The project team will address these issues by using several scales of analysis to compare and connect the history of different national projects of petroleum development. It will also reconstruct the transnational circulation of ideas, practices and people involved in petroleum technology and politics throughout Latin America, and draw a general, statistically informed panorama of Latin American oil transitions. This way, the research will expose the historical construction of a regional model which, in spite of national exceptions, uneven chronologies and local oppositions, generally came down to strengthening resource sovereignty and bind oil exploitation to national industrialization. The project’s timeframe is a short “Latin American development century”, which covers processes of oil-fueled national development from the first nationalization debates in the 1920s to the global oil shock in the mid-1970s.

The major innovation of the project is to develop the first research team that will seek to build a place for Latin America as a continent in the Anthropocene narrative. By shedding light on chains of political intentionality that pursued alternatives to the Western capitalist energy model, this new geographic perspective will make a substantial contribution to pluralizing and denaturalizing the history of human-induced geological and climatic change.

General information

• Activity Rate: 75%
• Maximum period of contract: 3 years
• Expected start date: to be agreed
• General Description of the Position

Postdoctoral position as part of the SNSF-funded “AnthropoSouth”: Latin American Oil Revolutions in the Development Century Eccellenza Project, under the leadership of Prof. Antoine Acker (Department of International History and Politics). The researcher will be affiliated to the Centre for International Environmental Studies (CIES) at IHEID. 

Role of the Postdoctoral Researcher

• Developing and implementing an individual project under the guidance of the project leader and in partnership with the other team members. The project will be integrated into, or dialogue with, AntropoSouth’s interest topics. If they wish, the recruited person will be encouraged to develop this work into a monograph project.
• Scientific publications.
• Presenting the research findings at conferences in Switzerland and abroad.
• Regularly participating in the collective activities of the project.
• Developing partnerships internationally as well as with NGOs and other non-academic networks.
• Participating in the conception of databases and - optional - visualization tools.
• This vacancy does not involve any teaching position; however, the recruited person will have the possibility to occasionally participate in class sessions.

Profile sought 

Essential

• A PhD degree completed or near completion (or equivalent degree).
• You have, or are willing to develop, a research project on the history of petroleum or a very close topic, that will address or include a region in the Latin American continent, and/or the interaction between Latin America and other world regions.
• Strong interest in transnational connections in energy history. Project ideas approaching oil history from an environmental perspective and/or race and gender issues, the history of science and technology, or the history of social movements will be particularly welcome.
• Oral and written proficiency in English and Spanish.

Desirable

• Experience in Latin American archives.

 Furtherassets

• Additional language skills.
• Experience in computer programming and in processing statistical data.

 Advantages

• Research budget allowing short or extended research trips, translations, editing and academic training programs.
• Possibility of applying for FNS’s complementary measures under certain eligibility conditions (Flexibility Grant, mobility, “subside égalité”).
• An exciting and multicultural work environment at IHEID, with a dynamic team and a project embedded in a wide array of international collaborations.

Application guidelines

To apply

Before 2022, April 15th.

Please send an application file containing:

• A motivation letter – if the applicant does not attach a project proposal to their file, the letter should include one paragraph developing an idea for a post-doctoral project.
• A detailed CV with a list of publications, if applicable.
• A copy of a published article/chapter or thesis chapter.
• A copy of your university degree certificates, alongside a copy of the official transcripts.
• The name and contact details of 2 references.
• Optional: a post-doctoral project proposal on a topic related to the history of petroleum in Latin America (2 to 5 pages).

We kindly ask you to submit your application file either in Word or in PDF format, in English, French, Spanish, or Portuguese.Experiences outside of the academic world will also be valued in the assessment of applications, and gaps in the CV due to family or health conditions will be taken into account. Members of groups underrepresented in academia are strongly encouraged to apply. 

For any administrative questions on this position, please reach out to:sylvia.nissim@graduateinstitute.ch;and to: antoine.acker@graduateinstitute.ch for any queries regarding the project and the scientific profile of this position.

We are an equal opportunity employer and value diversity at our company. We do not discriminate on the basis of age, marital status, disability status, race, national origin, color, gender, sexual orientation or religion. For more information, candidates are encouraged to consult  the Institute's website: graduateinstitute.ch Please note that offers received by post won't be considered.