PhD Position: Women Building Cities

1. Introduction

As a PhD Candidate, you will investigate how women in peripheral communities in Latin America transform their urban environments to become more liveable, sustainable, safe and democratic.

2. Job description

The Department of Anthropology and Development Studies (ADS) at Radboud University invites applications for a fully salaried PhD position within the NWO-funded project ‘Women building cities: Overcoming violence and transforming the city with communities of care’ (WECARE). WECARE is a comparative participatory and co-production research project led by Dr Sonja Marzi, Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies.

You will investigate how marginalised communities in Latin America transform their urban environments to become more liveable, sustainable, safe and democratic. In particular, you will focus on women’s everyday grassroots place-making, local leadership and their right to the city, examining how they create alternative urban spaces and governance systems. The project aims to deepen understanding of how forms of alternative urbanism and city-making are rooted in reciprocal practices of care and how these (predominantly informal) communities are created, function on an everyday basis, and why they thrive. The project explores how women’s urbanism and city-making contribute to making these spaces more liveable, safe and sustainable. The research compares four case studies across cities in Colombia and one other Latin American country, potentially, Peru, using a qualitative participatory and co-production research approach.

The research will be conducted by you and the Principal Investigator (PI), Dr Marzi. Together, you will further develop and refine the PhD case studies, the research approach and the various work packages, as well as analyse data, participate in conferences and author publications. Dr Marzi will conduct fieldwork in Colombia, and you will do the same in Peru, and an additional case study in another Latin American context may also be considered.

You will be based at Radboud University and conduct several months of in-depth fieldwork in low-income neighbourhoods in Lima, Peru (and potentially another city in Latin America). Your research will focus on how women residents overcome different forms of violence through place-making and local leadership, and how they create more safe, sustainable and liveable communities through self-organised, alternative forms of urbanism and governance. The specific focus will depend on the selected case study, but it will involve working with communities that often consist of migrants and displaced people who develop networks and collective practices to improve their living conditions, largely independent of the state. You will analyse how relationships are formed and sustained, how life histories shape these networks, how leadership emerges, and what enables these communities to thrive in contexts of violence and limited state support.

To address these questions, you will study everyday practices and perspectives using a participatory research approach, including audio-visual participatory methods, in order to co-produce knowledge together with women in these communities. Training in these advanced methods will be provided by the principal investigator. Strong knowledge of qualitative research methodologies and familiarity with participatory research approaches are required.

Your duties and responsibilities include:

• Setting up and carrying out in-depth and independent participatory fieldwork.
• Setting up and completing a PhD dissertation within four years.
• Authoring and co-authoring publications with other team members.
• Participating in conferences, workshops, seminars and other scholarly activities.
• Being part of the research team and contribute to the overall organisation and strategy of the team.
• Being an active member of the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies.
• As part of your PhD position, you will also contribute to teaching and will have the opportunity to work on components of your University Teaching Qualification portfolio.

You will be part of the WECARE research team, led by Dr Sonja Marzi (PI). Your supervisors will be Dr Sonja Marzi, Dr Tine Davids and Dr Edwin de Jong.

Would you like to learn more about what it’s like to pursue a PhD at Radboud University? Visit the page about working as a PhD candidate.

3. Profile

Essential requirements:

• You have a completed Master’s/Research Master’s degree in Geography, Anthropology, Development Studies or a related field.
• You have a proven substantive research interest in urban transformation, urban violence, feminist and gender approaches, issues of social justice, development and inequality, and theories of care.
• You are trained in qualitative methods and analysis approaches.
• You have experience in collecting and analysing qualitative data, ideally in relation to the themes of this project.
• You have experience with conducting fieldwork.
• You have an excellent command of written and spoken English and Spanish.
• You are familiar with Latin American cities, through being from the region, having worked or lived there, or having spent an extended period there.
• You are a team player willing to contribute to making this collaborative research project a success and you have the creativity, attitude and qualities needed to work independently and autonomously when required, including several months of solo fieldwork.
• You have proven academic writing skills.
• You have an interest in contributing to an engaged, vibrant and caring academic environment.
• You have good skills in planning, taking initiative, organising events, and presenting your work to a wider audience.

Desired requirements:

• You are trained in participatory, co-production, arts-based and audio-visual research methodologies.
• You are familiar with and trained in video editing and filming techniques.
• You have experience working with communities at a local level.
• You have experience and familiarity with cities in Peru and/or another urban context in Latin America.
• You have previous research experience in Latin America.
• You have publishing experience.

As you will become an active member of the department’s intellectual community and work closely together with the project team, you are expected to live in the Netherlands, preferably in the vicinity of Nijmegen.

For this position you are expected to have a command of English at C1 level. In some cases, it is necessary to submit an internationally recognised Certificate of Proficiency in the English Language.

4. We are

This position will be embedded in the Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, which is part of the Radboud Social Cultural Research (SCR) Institute at the Faculty of Social Sciences.

The research will align with the research on ‘changing inequalities’ of the Radboud Social Cultural Research (RSCR) institute. RSCR is a research institute at the Faculty of Social Sciences and consists of the groups Sociology; Cultural Anthropology and Development Studies; and Gender and Diversity Studies. The overall aim of RSCR is to improve the understanding of the processes leading to inequalities in various societies through investigating the societal phenomena of social inequality and inclusion.

5. We offer

• We will give you a temporary employment contract (1.0 FTE) of 1.5 years, after which your performance will be evaluated. If the evaluation is positive, your contract will be extended by 2.5 years (4-year contract).
• You will receive a starting salary of €3,059 gross per month based on a 38-hour working week, which will increase to €3,881 in the fourth year (salary scale P).
• You will receive an 8% holiday allowance and an 8,3% end-of-year bonus.
• You will receive extra days off. With full-time employment, you can choose between 30 or 41 days of annual leave instead of the statutory 20.

6. Practical information and applying

You can apply only via the button below. Address your letter of application to Sonja Marzi. In the application form, you will find which documents you need to include with your application. We look forward to receiving your application.

We hope to decide on the long list by Friday 17 April. Candidates who are placed on the longlist must submit a research proposal and a writing sample by Friday, 1 May. The first interviews will take place on Tuesday 19 May. You will preferably start your employment at 1 September 2026.

We can imagine you're curious about our application procedure. It describes what you can expect during the application procedure and how we handle your personal data and internal and external candidates.

We will recruit for the vacancy ourselves, so no employment agencies please. However, sharing in your network is appreciated.