Working environment

The «Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales» (www.ehess.fr) is a public institution of a scientific, cultural and professional nature, a "grand établissement" with a mission of research in the humanities and social sciences and research training. The institution welcomes 3,000 students, including 1,500 doctoral students (with nearly 250 theses defended per year in all social science disciplines) and as many master's students. EHESS also hosts 40 research units organized around different disciplines, approaches or, for a third of them, area studies. Within these units, more than 500 professors and researchers develop knowledge, train and supervise master's students and doctoral candidates. 

The School is a founding member of the Campus Condorcet public establishment, whose mission is to promote scientific cooperation between its founding members, and in particular to support their research programs, and to provide researchers and students attending the Campus with living and working conditions that meet international standards. 

The Institute of African Worlds (Institut des Mondes Africains https://imaf.cnrs.fr/) is a mixed interdisciplinary research unit (including: history, anthropology, political science, arts, geography, sociology, legal sciences) whose research focuses on the entire African continent. It is organized in two sites: Campus Condorcet (Aubervilliers, Île-de-France) and MMSH in Aix-en-Provence, and includes approximately 200 members, comprising 63 statutory members (professors and researchers) and approximately 80 doctoral students. IMAF is part of : EHESS, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, the Institut de Recherche et Développement, the Université de Paris 1-Panthéon Sorbonne, Aix-Marseille Université, and the École Pratique des Hautes Études.

The candidate will be based to the IMAF Aubervilliers site:

UMR 8171 research unit: Institute of African Worlds, Condorcet Campus
8, cours des Humanités
93322 Aubervilliers
France

Presentation of the project

WomAtWork represents the first comparative investigation into the history of female urban popular professions in in five African countries – Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana/Gold Coast, Sudan, and Tanganyika/Tanzania – over the course of fifty years (1919-1970). Not only is this topic under-studied in African history, but these professions (i.e. midwives, beauticians, market vendors, craftswomen, wedding or ritual singers) are also characterised by fascinating and unsettling aspects. For example, notions such as a set price for a service and fixed working times or workplace did not apply to many of such professions.

WomAtWork aims first to discover the peculiarities of these labour patterns and see their historical transformations as a result of political changes and the introduction of new technologies and commodities. Secondly, it examines professional subjectivities, the work ethos, norms and values of women at work. Finally, it questions the relationship between these professionals and their communities – including in the light of the social stigma sometimes attached to them – as well as the nexus between these labourers and protest, charting when and why they laid down their tools.

Based on an innovative methodology, this project seeks to overcome the invisibility of women in official archives by weaving together different threads of sources. It begins inside those photographic archives connected with institutions that had conscious agendas of representation and routines of intense textual production (for example, missionary stations). In some cases, these visual and textual sources lead to networks or families of women professionals, whose oral history will be solicited. Third, the project aims to analyse the vernacular press combined with oral accounts.

Through these objectives and methodologies, WomatWork will be a participant in the mission of writing a more democratic, more inclusive history, one that firmly establish the centrality of women’s labour in African history.

This part of the project will focus on Kenya as a case study.

For more information, please visit the web-site of the project here: https://womatwork.hypotheses.org/

Objectives

The researcher will develop original research, within the framework of the project, aiming at:

• Establish a periodization of the history of urban working-class women in the major historical changes of the country studied (world wars, decolonization, technological changes, etc).
• Chart the varieties of popular female occupations in urban environment across time.
• Explore the link between professional affiliation and women's subjectivity, work ethos and experiences.
• Explore the relationship between working women and their communities and families; understand the link between work and gender relations.
• Understand the link between working women and political participation in times of political unrest.

Collective tasks 

• Participation in the project reading groups
• Participation in the organization and planning of the project seminars

Specific conditions

The PhD student will have to work in a team composed of 3 other PhDs, who are respectively working on Ghana, Ethiopia and Tanzania; a post-doc who is working on Ghana, and the 3 senior staff, specialized on Sudan, Ghana and Kenya. She/he must be ready to adhere to the project schedule, which is the following:

• First 6 months at Condorcet, Aubervilliers (November to April)
• 3 months of archival research in several European archives
• 12 months of fieldwork in Kenya
• 15 months at Condorcet (writing the thesis, participation in international conferences and in the summer schools, etc.)

This schedule is binding. Periods of presence in France are necessary to participate to project activities.

How to apply

Applications must include the following documents 

• a CV
• a covering letter
• 2 reference letters
• a research project on the aspects that the candidate would like to develop during the contract period (max 10 pages) and a preliminary bibliography
• Copy of the full Master thesis in history
• Copy of the last diploma obtained and transcript of grades

Applications must be submitted on the EHESS employment interface: https://recrutement.ehess.fr/ between the 1st of February 2025 and the 30th of April 2025. This is compulsory. Applications sent only by mail will not be considered.

A full set of the required documents should also be sent at the following adresse: womatwork.erc@gmail.com 

The job interview will take place within two weeks after the deadline.

For any information concerning the project and the scientific expectations of the position, please contact:

• Elena Vezzadini (PI WomatWork): elena.vezzadini@cnrs.fr 
• Karin Pallaver: Karin.pallaver@unibo.it 
• Anne Hugon: anne.hugon@univ-paris1.fr