Postdoc Position in Caribbean history, c. 1650-1850 (enslaved mobility)

The Saxo Institute at the University of Copenhagen is pleased to announce a call for applications for a 3-year postdoctoral position in Caribbean history. The position is available from May 1, 2021 and is funded by the research project IN THE SAME SEA financed by the European Research Council from 2020-2025.

Application deadline: January 10, 2021

The successful postdoctoral candidate will focus on the mobility afforded to and enforced upon enslaved Africans and African Caribbeans by the small size and close proximity of the islands of the Lesser Antilles while also contributing to the overall research aims of IN THE SAME SEA (see https://inthesamesea.ku.dk/). Enslaved sailors and maritime workers were engaged on small vessels crossing between islands. Also, nearby islands were locations of temporary respite and/or freedom for enslaved people caught in the crushing regime of plantation labor. Mobility between islands was not, however, only a matter of slaves escaping the hardships of slavery.

Enslaved people were sold in the inter-island slave trade, and they were violently uprooted from their homes, because small islands were vulnerable targets during the recurring wars of the period. Moreover, enslaved men and women were regularly banished from particular islands due to alleged offenses against the numerous laws, local and metropolitan, that criminalized their activities. Though this is a practice about which we know little, it presumably generated a circulation of slaves with knowledge of allegedly criminal activities, such as healing and escape.  Relevant research themes include, but are not limited to, questions about who (men, women, African-born, Caribbean-born) was on the move, where they went, what their motives were, and what types of knowledge informed their decisions as well as a focus on how white authorities attempted to shape enslaved mobility.

The full call can be read here: https://employment.ku.dk/faculty/?show=153083