Research Associate in Slavery in War

About us

This role is one of several new roles being recruited under the new Leverhulme Centre for Research on Slavery in War, which is based in the School of Security Studies, King’s College London. The new Centre is structured around four interconnected research strands—(Re)conceptualising, Understanding, Forecasting & Tackling—and aims for far-reaching, historically informed insights that transform understandings of war and global responses to modern slavery in conflict settings.

About the role

The role falls under the “Understanding” strand, and the postholder will be based in the Department of War Studies in the Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy. The Understanding strand will map the distribution, prevalence & forms of slavery across diverse conflict zones in the modern world, building a new analytical paradigm to understand the phenomenon of slavery in war since the 1790s. The postholder will bring historical expertise to the team, supporting work to develop the Centre’s datasets and the team’s use of data analytics and machine learning.

Together, this Centre strand team will build a blended data resource & sets of case studies that can help to gauge the prevalence, forms, and distribution of slavery in wars from 1791 to the present, and to understand the ways slavery & war have shaped each other as phenomena. Key research questions include: How have forms of slavery manifested in wars throughout modern history ? What factors explain how slavery has manifested in wars? How can diverse datasets be synthesised and analysed to research & address slavery in war?

The role-holder will work collaboratively as part of an interdisciplinary team including King’s College London colleagues from War Studies, Digital Humanities and Law, and with colleagues at our partner institution (University of Nottingham) as well as undertaking independent research. They will use approaches, methodologies, & techniques appropriate to the research.

The role-holder will have the opportunity to use their initiative & creativity to identify areas for research, develop research methods and extend their research portfolio within the thematic area of slavery in war. They will have a public-facing role and represent the team externally.

There will be opportunities to work collaboratively with people who have lived experience of slavery, trafficking, & exploitation in conflict settings.

This work is international in scope and covers a wide range of different substantive issues and approaches connected to slavery in war, as well as various different forms of exploitation and contexts. Applications are therefore welcome from researchers who wish to bring a particular perspective, lens, or approach to the work of the Centre.

This is a full-time (35 Hours per week), and you will be offered an fixed-term contract until 31-Dec-2027.

About you

To be successful in this role, we are looking for candidates to have the following skills & experience:

Essential criteria

• PhD in History or closely related subject area
• Significant experience in working with historical archives, texts and other data sources & repositories, producing critical analysis of data, evaluating texts and bringing new insights.
• Proven track record in planning and managing to completion research activity and meeting own/team research objectives & deadlines in collaboration with others.
• Strong skills in qualitative and/or quantitative comparative methods
• A track record of publication in slavery (including forced labour & human trafficking), human rights, war, conflict, or related subjects.
• Strong organisational and project management skills
• Strong oral and written communication skills, including the ability to communicate complex information with clarity.

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