We seek an enthusiastic and highly motivated student for a fully funded qualitative social science PhD project on the social-economic dimensions of lake restoration in Aotearoa. This three-year scholarship is part of the ‘Our Lakes, Our Future’ programme, enabling you to collaborate with leading researchers and practitioners in lake ecology, geography, environmental management, and mātauranga Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand and internationally.
The successful applicant will develop a PhD research project that examines how key actors are working to protect and improve lake health in Aotearoa, and how social-ecological relationships are being reconfigured through these practices. Precise topics and methods will be confirmed in collaboration with the successful candidate, with the potential to draw on a range of ideas and approaches from human geography, political ecology, science and technology studies, and related fields. Themes may include:
- Changing discourses and practices of lake restoration over time,
- Knowledges, ontologies, and/or calculative technologies shaping restoration decisions,
- The objectives, interests, investments and imaginaries driving lake restoration,
- Indigenous approaches to restoration and outcomes for Indigenous communities,
- How lake restoration reflects and reworks wider processes of settler colonialism, neoliberal environmental governance and capitalism.
The research will afford opportunities for fieldwork including engagement with mana whenua and key stakeholders, supported by relationships held by the wider research programme.
We welcome applications from candidates with qualitative social research skills who are motivated to carry out original research, working across disciplinary boundaries and in collaboration with the wider research team, mana whenua partners, and stakeholders. Ideally, you will be ready to commence full-time study in early 2025.
The research will be supervised by Dr Brendon Blue at the School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences, Victoria University of Wellington, and Dr Kiely McFarlane at Cawthron Institute.
For more information on the scholarship and type of candidates we are seeking, and to access our application portal, please visit the Cawthron careers page https://careers.cawthron.org.nz/job/f6ad4e4c-6e66-ef11-99b9-c4346bb8427a/phd-scholarship-social-dimensions-of-lake-restoration-nelson-city-nz/.
Photo sources: Department of Conservation, David G. Schmale
