POST-DOCTORAL position at Rhodes University in the Departments of
Anthropology and Fisheries Science.
One year contract extendible to 3, contingent on performance. 140,000 Rand
(plus various research expenses covered from grants). Start date is
negotiable.
For Project: A Comparative Analysis of Coastal Communities Responses to
Climate and Environmental Changes in Africa and Oceania
PI: Prof. Shankar Aswani, (Rhodes University) Senior Personnel: Prof.
Warwick Sauer and Prof. Kevern Cochrane, (Rhodes University)
Overseas Collaborators: Dr. Hajanirina Razafindrainibe (NFP- ASCLME,
Madagascar); Prof. Carmen Do Santo (Universidade Agostinho Neto) and Dr.
Ingrid van Putten and Dr. Eva Plaganyi (CSIRO, Australia)
Project Summary:
This Sandisa Imbewu funded program will bring together the departments of
Anthropology and Ichthyology and Fisheries Science (DIFS) (Humanities and
Sciences) to generate cutting edge interdisciplinary applied science for
understanding contemporary coupled social and ecological problems in Africa
and Oceania in the context of climate change. This program will also result in
the establishment of an interdisciplinary program between Anthropology and
DIFS in Coastal Human Ecology that will target the development of postgraduate and the student body at large at Rhodes University.
Climate change has dramatically increased the levels of climatic and
environmental unpredictability in coastal communities in Africa and Oceania
and, consequently, the vulnerability of primary productivity and survival for
coastal communities, which are often also experiencing disproportionate
levels of poverty, exposure to pollutants, or abusive external appropriation of
the resources of their area. As climate anomalies and environmental changes
intensify in coastal communities across the tropics, these will be severely
affected. For instance, the oceans are not warming evenly and those areas
that are warming fastest including sites in Southern and Eastern Africa as well
as sites across Oceania is creating a number of ecological, social, and
economic challenges. Other associated changes occurring in these areas
include large scale algal blooms, which result in widespread death of marine
life, and impact human health and food security. These “hotspots” represent
living laboratories for observing change and human responses to it, and more
specifically, for studying the vulnerability and resilience of coastal
communities in Africa and Oceania to protracted and sudden changes of their
marine resources and associated livelihoods, as well as their concomitant
adaptive responses in a cross- cultural and multi-sited geographical context.
Such comparative knowledge can better assist us in developing theoretical
models of human adaptations to a changing environment as well as providing
applied options and management strategies that are contextually suitable,
realistic, and achievable on the ground.
This interdisciplinary research program led by Rhodes University in
partnership with various African (Madagascar and Angola; [Mozambique-time
and funds permitting]) and Australian institutions will study the vulnerability
and resilience of coupled human-natural marine systems in selected sites in
Africa and Oceania (Western
Melanesia) as they face the local effects of global climate and environmental
change. Within this cross-cultural context, hotspot sites experiencing changes
such as massive algal blooms will be a point of reference for every community
surveyed so that we can be confident of comparability and for gauging how
communities in various parts of the world simultaneously cope with protracted
and sudden environmental changes. More specifically, this interdisciplinary
and multi-methods quantitative and qualitative research will: (1) measure the
social and ecological effects of rapid and protracted environmental disruption
on coastal communities, (2) identify local understanding of climate and
environmental change and match these data to local scientific research, (3)
assess the concomitant responses of coupled human and natural systems (to
investigate system dynamics and feedbacks), (4) evaluate potential drivers of
greater system vulnerability and resilience, (5) employ a Multi-scale Integrated
Models of Ecosystem Services (MIMES) modelling package (as well as other
MICE modelling tools currently being discussed at GULLS) to integrate all this
data, develop a model of current ecosystem services lost, and simulate the
daunting prospect of a “post climate change scenario” for marine resources,
in which reefs are heavily damaged and people have to adapt to a very
different marine environment, and (6) improve the capacity of African
researchers and students as well as local communities in Africa and Oceania
to predict and respond to current and future climate related changes.
Required qualifications: We will consider candidates with natural and/or social
science backgrounds, but it is imperative that the candidate has a strong
quantitative and/or modelling background (able to use R stats software, etc.)
Desirable qualification: Capacity to speak Portuguese and use of GIS
Please email application letter, CV, and 1-2 published articles to:
Shankar Aswani
Professor
Department of Anthropology
Department of Ichthyology and Fisheries Science (DIFS) Rhodes University
Grahamstown 6140 South Africa
Telephone: +27 46 603 8231
Fax: +27 46 622 5570
s.aswani@ru.ac.za
Web: http://www.ru.ac.za/anthropology/people/profshankaraswani/