Archive: Gennaio, 2014

• Five positions at the Geography Department, Soran University, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

Three permanent geography lectureships at Soran University, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

Job title: Lecturer in Human Geography

Starting date: Flexible

Application closing date: 28.02.2014

Salary: US$3000.00 per month (the salary is tax free. The position includes free accommodation and relocation expenses)

Job Description:

Currently Soran University, a young and fast developing university in the autonomous Kurdistan Region, Iraq, is in the process of developing a research group as part of the Geography Department that will be focusing on two main research strands.

First, the geostrategic situation of the Kurdistan Region, including the issue of being a landlocked nation in a region amidst insecurity and conflict, as well as the nature of the developing (oil and gas based) Turkish-Kurdish Regional Government partnership.

Second, possible internal institutional structures that help not only to avoid the ‘curse’ of oil price volatility, but to solidify democratic structures.

Researchers interested in those or related strands are welcome to apply. We explicitly encourage applications from motivated early career scholars. The research group will enable its members to conduct research on an international level, with funding for participation in international conferences. Teaching and other non-research responsibilities at the Geography Department are flexible and will be individually designed around ongoing research projects. Teaching will be in English. The main purpose of the research group is to develop a research profile in geopolitics and security around natural resources and energy policy, to publish research in international peer-reviewed journals and to supervise PhD students. The advertised positions will be permanent (for administrative reasons all contracts officially run for one year, but will be renewed upon request).

Unlike the rest of the country, the Kurdistan region is secure. In the last ten years there have been no civilian casualties due to terror attacks. There have been no incidences of attacks or threats directed at foreigners.  Direct flights to Europe and the Gulf link the Kurdistan Region directly to the outside world. Interested candidates should feel free to contact Dr. Till Paasche (till.paasche@soran.edu.iq) informally if there are any questions regarding the position, the university, or life in the region.

For further details on the University and the region, see http://www.soran.edu.iq/soran/.­­-­­­

Main duties:

Research:

– Develop your own geographical research projects in coordination with the research group leader

– Collaborate on original research with other staff from the research group

– Publish research in internationally recognised peer reviewed journals and present research at conferences

– Participate in the drafting of grant applications

Teaching:

– Recruitment and Supervision of PhD students

– Teaching in the undergraduate programme of the Geography Department including appropriate assessment etc.

– Support the curriculum development together with the Head of the Department and the research group leader

– Organisation of methodology workshops for local staff

– Provide guidance and advice to other staff and students

Administration:

– Undertake required administrative duties

– Other duties appropriate to the post as required by the research group leader and the head of the department

Essential criteria:

– PhD in Geography or related discipline

– Record of high quality publications appropriate with stage of career

– Ability to develop research that corresponds with the interest of the research group

– Teaching experience

– Ability to work as part of a team

– Good organizational skills

– Ability to meet required deadlines

Desired criteria:

– Experience in the supervision of PhD students

– Writing grant applications

– Experience in curriculum development

– Experience in interdisciplinary research

For the application please send your CV, a cover letter, the names and contact details of two referees to till.paasche@soran.edu.iq. We will only contact the referees of those applicants who are being shortlisted.

Two PhD studentships at Soran University, Kurdistan Region, Iraq

Please note that only Iraqi passport holders are eligible for the studentship.

The Geography Department at Soran University announces a PhD studentship (http://www.soran.edu.iq/soran/). We welcome applications from students with Master degrees interested in Kurdish oil and gas geopolitics. Being landlocked, the Kurdistan Region, Iraq faces the critical challenge of making its oil and gas available to international markets. The geopolitical situation in the region indicates that the most likely export route for the KRG’s oil and gas is via the resource hungry Turkey. However, the KRG’s relations with Turkey are not without differences and such co-operation needs careful assessment. The studentship offers an opportunity to analyse this relationship, its implications for the Turkish-PKK peace process, increasing PYD led autonomy in Turkey, as well as possible alternative export routes for Kurdish crude oil and gas.

After completion of the PhD programme, the candidate is required to teach at the University of Soran as a member of staff (position: Lecturer of Human Geography) in the Geography Department for a minimum of four years.

The studentship that runs for four years is part of the new split-site PhD programme meaning that the successful candidate will have an internal supervisor at Soran University (Dr. Till Paasche) and an external supervisor outside Iraq. In this case Professor James D. Sidaway at the Geography Department, National University of Singapore, will take on this role (http://profile.nus.edu.sg/fass/geojds/stf_geojds.htm).

Successful candidate are required/have the opportunity to spend one year at the National University of Singapore to work on their PhD and engage with Singapore’s vibrant academic community.

General admission requirements: A Maters degree in (Human) Geography or any related discipline. An English language certificate (TOFEL score of 550 (PB) IELTS (academic) band score of 6). Lower scores may be accepted as conditional split-site candidates. The required English language certificate must be obtained within one year. During the first phase of the PhD the candidate has the opportunity to do intensive English courses at the CLAD language centre associated with Soran University.

For the application please send your CV, a cover letter, the names and contact details of two referees and a one page research proposal to till.paasche@soran.edu.iq (please merge the documents into one single pdf-file). We will only contact the referees of those applicants who are being shortlisted.

Closing Date for Applications: 28.02.2014

If you have any questions about the studentship please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Till Paasche (till.paasche@soran.edu.iq).

• Antipode Foundation funding opportunities 2014

Antipode Foundation Scholar-Activist Project and International Workshop Awards closes at the end of March.

• Special Session of the CPG at the IGU Regional Conference

Camps. Geographies of the Sovereign Exception

Special Session co-organized by the IGU-Commission on Political Geography journal Political Geography

2014 IGU Krakow Regional Conference, Krakow, Poland, 18-22 August 2014

Featuring:

• Political Geography lecture at IGU 2014 by Claudio Minca , Unviersity of Wageningen

• Intervention by Franco Farinelli, University of Bologna, President of the Association of Italian Geographers – AGEI

• Intervention by Vladimir Kolossov, Russian Academy of Science, President of the International Geographical Union – IGU-UGI

Political Geography lecture at IGU 2014:

Camps.

Claudio Minca

Abstract:

Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has famously, and controversially, claimed that the camp is the nomos of our time. However, the ‘camp concept’ (and related set of practices) is certainly not new, and has found many diverse manifestations during the last century or so, some of them still present and proliferating also today. Detention camps, training camps, concentration camps, refugee camps, transition camps, tourist camps, are to be found everywhere, and they all seem to be driven by a variable mix of custody, care and control. Also by explicit and/or implicit forms of violence.

Starting from Auschwitz – the most studied camp ever – and the Nazis’ obsession with camps, touching upon my own biographical experience of refugee camps, via the forms of disciplinary encampments of all sorts and nature that dot our contemporary geographies of the everyday, to conclude with reference to Guantanamo and to some recent examples of camps established to temporarily ‘host and protect’ illegal migrants at the margins of Europe, this paper intends to discuss the broader geographies of the camp, intended as a key expression of the Modern and its spatial projections. In particular, it reflects on the topographical imperative that seems to be at the core of all camps, together with the practices of transgression of that same imperative. It also explores the relation between these camp spatialities and ‘the biopolitical’, and in particular the ways in which bodies are governed and mobilized according to the camp logic, including forms of self-discipline.

It concludes by asking whether the camp, as a spatial formation, may indeed be considered the global nomos of our age; and if so, which may actually be the theoretical (and urgently political) implications for our discipline, faced with the geographies of exception imposed precisely by the proliferation of new camps, everywhere.

27th Annual PGSG Pre-conference – USF Tampa April 7, 2014

• Paper Session of the CPG at the IGU Regional Conference

The Political Geographies of Camps

Convenors: Irit Katz and James D Sidaway

Discussant Claudio Minca

IGU-CPG, Krakow, 18-22 August 2014

Camps have proliferated. Formal and informal camps constructed for/by refugees, undocumented migrants, asylum seekers and Roma/Travellers, appear in Europe. Tens of thousands live in camps in Africa and Asia. Elsewhere; in Oceania and the Caribbean migrants and detainees of the ‘war on terror’ are held in camps.

Camps create multifaceted geographies of displacement and movement, asylum and refuge. Although camps are frequently created as emergency spaces for the control and management of people, they often become sites of suspended temporariness, a continuing state of exception.

Following the reflections opened by the Political Geography lecture at IGU2014 by Claudio Minca and the interventions of Franco Farinelli and Vladimir Kolossov in the special session “Camps. Geographies of the Sovereign Exception” (co-organized by the IGU-Commission on Political Geography and the journal Political Geography), this session will explore the varied aspects of camps and examine them from different angles; their global political roles, their spatial vocabulary and materiality, the ways they are created, governed and function as spaces of everyday life, and the new forms of politics and political subjects that emerge in them. Case studies and other papers that develop perspectives for comparative research and critical thinking on these varied political geographies of camps will be welcome in this session.

Please send abstracts (max. 250 characters in the title incl. spaces and max. 500 words in the abstract text) through the on-line registration system by ***27th January 2014***

The session will follow special session “Camps. Geographies of the Sovereign Exception” – Claudio Minca and interventions of Franco Farinelli and Vladimir Kolossov (co-organized by the IGU Commission on Political Geography and the journal Political Geography).

• Abstract Submission Deadline extended for the Krakow Regional Conference 2014

The deadline for submission of abstracts for the upcoming IGU Regional Conference in Krakow, Poland, has now been extended to 27th January 2014.
 
Please remember that the abstracts can be submitted ONLY via the on-line system, and to do that, a participant has to register in the system first, details at:
 
Visit the conference website for further information
www.igu2014.org

• Postdoctoral Fellowship – Ben-Gurion University

Postdoctoral Fellowship at Ben-Gurion University

Geopolitics and Border Studies

• Post Doctoral Research Associate – Durham

Post Doctoral Research Associate

Job Description