Student Assistant: Project Global Business Slave Trade

studies the main patterns of the Dutch, Portuguese, and Spanish slave trades in the Indian Ocean, Indonesian Archipelago, and the South China Sea. It will do so by examining in detail how and by whom were these commercial flows and operations organized, who gained and lost by being involved in these activities, and what participation in these commercial streams meant for the economies of these European Empires in Asia.

reconstructs the historical slave trade in the wider Indian Ocean, Indonesian Archipelago and East Asia.

• Enter and curate data on slave trade, business, actors, etc. in the ESTA database.
• Collect digital source materials.
• Create ground truth transcriptions and layout for Spanish, Portuguese and English digital colonial archival material (to train handwritten text recognition models).
• Annotate for entity (and event) detection.
• Assist in organizing project events and other tasks.

• We are looking for a Student Assistant that would like to gain experience of working in an academic environment and learn how to work with traditional as well as more modern historical research methodologies.
• We are looking for a Student Assistant that is independent, motivated and social.
• You will work on dedicated tasks (such as data entry and transcription), but in a collaborative team setting.
• We require familiarity with early modern archival handwritten sources; an affinity with social and economic history, Global and Colonial History and/or the History of slave trade and slavery. Experience with working with digital materials, as well as with Excel is a plus. A reasonable command of English alongside Portuguese and/or Spanish. Command of Dutch is a plus.

Through the projects, the Student Assistant will be involved with various research projects, including Globalise, Voices of Resistance, Resisting Enslavement and Hub of Global Labour Conflicts.

• University student doing a BA in History, or in another discipline relevant for the core research of the projects;
• Knowledge and affinity regarding the history of slave trade and slavery; or with the history of European colonialism (especially in Asia);
• Some experience working with data, digital material handwritten text recognition.
• Independent and social working attitude;
• Good command of English and one or more of the following languages:
  Portuguese, Spanish or another Latin-based language

The interviews will most likely take place on the second or third week of November.

Applicants will be assessed on the following criteria: a) familiarity with the scientific field and tasks; b) job motivation; c) originality; and d) compliance with the vacancy requirements.

The International Institute of Social History (IISG-KNAW) is an Academy research institute. IISG is one of the most prestigious social history research institutes worldwide. It examines how work and labour relations have developed globally over time. To support its research, it collects archives and data from all over the world. The relationship between its research and its data and archive collections contributes substantially to the institute’s unique nature.

Depending on education and experience the minimum salary is 0 and the maximum salary is 3.288 gross per month for a full‑time appointment (scale SA cao Nederlandse Universiteiten/KNAW). This is exclusive of 8% vacation allowance, 8.3% year‑end bonus, travel allowance, internet allowance, home working allowance and pension accrual with ABP. The KNAW offers its staff an excellent package of secondary benefits.

A package that meets the…