Hydropolitical Adaptation´ is one of three interconnected projects within a multidisciplinary network, as part of the White Rose Universities Consortium, which includes the Universities of Sheffield, Leeds and York. All of these projects look critically at struggles connected with water in the Global South; however, they also look more hopefully at the ways in which these struggles help create communities either born or consolidated in adversity, and in which these communities interact with the larger international community in pursuit of a more sustainable world.

The main objective of this studentship is to explore the relationships between the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, narratives and representations of trauma, resilience and sustainability across differently ethnicized community contexts in Sri Lanka, and the contested politics of the postcolonial Sri Lankan national. It is expected that the project will use comparative ethnographic effort as well as examining recent fictional and testimonial representations in the wake of the disaster to explore how differently ethnicized communities have narrativized the tsunami and its effects in order to cope with, adapt to and build hydrological `resilience´. It will also explore how each community has responded to and connected with governmental post-tsunami reconstruction and aid initiatives articulated at the national level. The project aims to offer new understandings of the differential cultural and community resources that go into the fashioning of hydropolitical `sustainabilities´, whilst also exploring the role that post-tsunami efforts played in Sri Lanka´s protracted civil war.

The student involved in this project will benefit from the combined expertise of Dr. Tariq Jazeel at the University of Sheffield (Geography, Postcolonial Studies, South Asian Studies) and Dr. Joseph Murphy at the University of Leeds (Governance, Environment and Sustainability, Colonial/Postcolonial Studies). The student will also benefit from involvement in the South Asian Studies In the North (SASIN) research network, in which York, Leeds and Sheffield participate, as well as the University of Sheffield´s `Sheffield International Development Network´ (SIDNET). Opportunities will be provided for fieldwork in Sri Lanka, while the researcher will also be invited to take part in, and help organise, a number of network-wide events.

A White Rose Scholarship award will cover the cost of the UK/EU tuition fees and provide an annual, tax-free maintenance stipend at the standard UK research rate. In addition, a support grant will be made available to the lead for project research expenses.International applicants will be required to pay the difference between the UK/EU tuition fee and the Overseas tuition fee. Awards are tenable for a maximum of three years, subject to satisfactory progress. Further information on the White Rose Scholarships can be found

Application Deadline: 21 February 2011

Further Scholarship Information and Application