The Changing Character of War Centre is seeking to employ a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to join a research team for CCW’s “From Conflict Actors to Architects of Peace (CONPEACE) programme directed by Dr Annette Idler.
The project is a new and exciting research strand under the umbrella of CCW’s CONPEACE programme (https://conpeace.ccw.ox.ac.uk) which explores changing security landscapes in transitions from war to peace. In 2016, the Colombian government and the country’s largest rebel group, the FARC-EP, signed a remarkable peace deal. While this agreement led to the FARC’s demobilization, major challenges remain to achieve sustainable peace and to guarantee basic security conditions, especially for those living in the country’s most marginalized regions. Moreover, the cross-border effects of the unstable situation in neighbouring Venezuela further contributes to the complexities of a successful transition from war to peace.
Against this backdrop, this project, implemented in close partnership with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), investigates the changing security landscape along and across the Colombia-Venezuela and Colombia-Ecuador border. We trace how distinct configurations among various violent non-state groups (what we call “non-state order”) near and across the border influence security, yielding specific protection challenges. We also analyse how the “border effect” intensifies insecurities in these vulnerable borderlands in the context of the arrival of a large number of Venezuelans. The project has three major components:
Enhance knowledge through research and analysis,
Strengthen civil society capacities to mitigate the border effect and the spillover of the Venezuelan crisis through knowledge exchange,
Enhance understanding of the centre-periphery disconnect in the region through cross-stakeholder engagement.
The Postdoctoral Research Fellow will be expected to engage in advanced independent research in the field of conflict, peace, and/or security studies, with a focus on the Andean borderlands and its international context, to publish research of an internationally excellent standard, and participate fully in the research life of the Changing Character of War Centre.
The duties of the Post-doctoral Research Fellow will include carrying out research, assisting the Project Director in the academic and practical organisation of academic events in Oxford and in Colombia; to assist with publications; and to assist with the development of plans for the future extension and consolidation of CCW’s CONPEACE programme in Oxford.
Grade and salary : Grade 7.1: £32,236 per annum
Hours: Full time – 37.5 hours per week
Contract type: The fixed-term appointment will start as soon as possible, for a duration of one year in the first instance, with a possibility of contract extension for up to three years, subject to funding availability.
Location: Pembroke College, St Aldates, Oxford, OX1 1DW
Deadline: Tuesday 17 December
