European Union’s Marie Curie Initial Training Network Fellowship
Early Stage Researchers in the field of Transdisciplinary Diaspora Studies
Cultural Practices of Diaspora

Applications are invited for the position of three early stage researchers (for 36 months, full time) to work on a project situated within the area of Diasporic Literary Theory, Indian Diasporic Literatures and Cinemas at the University of Mumbai.

Marie Curie Initial Training Network
“Diasporic Constructions of Home and Belonging” (CoHaB)
All over the world, stable concepts of home and belonging have, for a variety of reasons, become the exception rather than the rule. This has led to dramatic cultural, social and political changes and challenges. The study of diaspora and migration has therefore evolved into a burgeoning field of research with an urgent practical relevance. The CoHaB Network unites some of the best research institutions in this field, i.e. the University of Muenster, Germany, the University of Mumbai, India, the Universities of Oxford and Northampton and the School for Oriental and African Studies in the U.K. and the University of Stockholm in Sweden, in the conviction that interdisciplinary training as well as international and inter-sectoral co-operation are key to any productive study of diaspora. CoHaB is based on the resolve to strengthen interdisciplinary research between the social sciences and the humanities in the field with a view to establishing diaspora studies as a transdisciplinary research area in its own right. Training young researchers on the basis of this conviction means to provide them with the opportunity to conduct their work in a variety of disciplinary environments as well as outside a purely academic context. Secondments to associated non-academic partners, the Centre for Advanced Studies in India, India, The Migration Policy Group, Belgium and the Cabinet d’Avocats, France, will not only help the fellows gain insight into specific diaspora-related, extramural fields of work, but also tie in the results of their work experience with their academic work. Academic secondments to co-supervisors from within CoHaB guarantee a sound interdisciplinary basis. Co-operating within this network, young researchers from various disciplinary backgrounds, but with similar interests in the field of diaspora studies, will join forces to develop their projects on a shared platform.

Applicants will be expected to engage in an open-minded and continuing dialogue about the methodology, theory, and terminology of diaspora studies as a transdiscipline. All project submission will be expected to attend to the nexus between aspects of diaspora on the one hand and constructions, politics, and ideologies of home and belonging on the other. In the context of the specific project at Mumbai University, this also entails an exploration of Literary Theories related to Diaspora and its cultural practices in the area of Indian Diasporic Literatures and Cinemas. In the context of Literature the focus should be on the manner in which diasporics negotiate multiple, hybrid identities in their hostland and homeland and how this in turn impacts upon their concept of Home and Belonging. Indian Diasporics also imaged not just their hybrid identities and notions of home and belonging in cinematic texts but also imaged India itself to the world. Such films have in the last couple of decades made for considerable global visibility for film makers such as Gurinder Chadha, Meera Nair and Deepa Mehta. However, such imaging is now no longer one-sided because Indian cinema too has begun to image its diaspora both to itself and to the world in cross-over films such as Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham and My Name is Khan.

The three areas in which project proposals are invited at Mumbai University are:
1. Hybrid Selves – Hyphenated Identities: Diasporic Indian English Fiction
2. Representations of Diaspora in Popular Indian Cinema
3. Representations of Women in Diasporic Indian Literature and Cinema
These are wide area heads and applicants may have different angles and slants to their project proposals as long as they fit into these three categories.

Benefits
The researchers will be employed at the University of Mumbai on a full-time basis as Ph.D. students, with a gross salary of Indian Rupees equivalent of 1.770 Euros per month. Tax will be deducted at source from this amount according to the Indian Government rules. ESRs will have to compulsorily make their own arrangements for Medical Insurance valid in India. The position also includes a flat rate monthly mobility allowance of Indian Rupees equivalent of 559 Euros for ESRs with family and 391 Euros for ESRs without family, as well as ample funds to participate in training activities of the CoHaB network and in international conferences.

Requirements
Applicants must:
- have a Master’s degree (or equivalent) with at least 55% overall marks or B+ grade in the areas of Anglophone Postcolonial Literatures and Cultural Studies. Applicants with a first class or A grade will be preferred.
- have less than four years of research experience and must not yet have been awarded a doctoral degree
- not have resided or carried out their main activity (work, studies, etc.) in India for more than 12 months in the 3 years immediately prior to their recruitment
- have previous experience (academic and/or extra-mural) in the field of diaspora studies, especially literature and cinema
- have an excellent command of English (spoken and written)
- satisfy the eligibility criteria for fellowships in Marie Curie Initial Training Networks.

Applications must include:
- a curriculum vitae (including information on nationality and place of residence for the past three years),
- academic record (including transcripts),
- letter of motivation,
- two references,
- a short proposal (2,000 words) for a research project, outlining the area of research, specific research hypotheses, objectives, methods, expected conclusions and tentative pattern of chapters and their contents with a select bibliography.

Submit applications electronically, in a single PDF file, to:
Professor Dr. Nilufer E. Bharucha, Coordinator and Scientist-in-Charge at nbharucha@hotmail.com and nilufer.bharucha@english.mu.ac.in, latest by 29th February 2012.

Formal evaluation of candidates will begin on March 1, 2012, and continue until the position is filled. The successful candidates will be expected to join CoHaB by August 2012.

The CoHaB website can be found at www.itn-cohab.net

CoHaB is committed to equal opportunities and encourages applications from all sections of the international community worldwide.