Assistant Professor – University of Michigan, Center for Afroamerican & African Studies

The Center for Afroamerican & African Studies (CAAS) seeks to hire a full time, tenure track, junior faculty member specializing in environmental and resource issues in sub-Saharan Africa with an expressed interest in sustainable development. As part of the "Environment, Information and Sustainable Development: The Asia-Africa Nexus" cluster hire being conducted by the Department of History (LSA), the School of Information, and the School of Natural Resources and Environment, this CAAS-specific hire would ideally be engaged in the broader issue of the relationship between Africa and Asia and the consequences for economic and social life in African nations.

We seek a scholar, trained in the social sciences with an interest in understanding the intersections between trade, development and the environment. Relevant areas of research include, but are not limited to, (1) Climate change and natural disasters; (2) Energy; (3) Extracting and processing natural resources; (4) Environmental health and pollution; (5) neocolonialism and the effects of Asian national and corporate practices; (6) Environmental informatics, as well as the disposal of "technological waste"; (7) Strategies of making development sustainable; (8) Demography and population growth; (9) Urban planning; and (10) The relationship between human rights and environmental justice. Ideally, candidates would share an interest in formulating, testing and implementing solutions, particularly those involving the use of new information and communications technologies such as GIS mapping and ICT4D. We encourage applications from a variety of social science disciplines including geography, anthropology, sociology, development studies, economics and political science. The successful applicant must be committed to a cooperative interdisciplinary research agenda with three other members of the cluster hire.

Review of applications begins October 1, 2009.

More information is here.