PhD Position: Groundwater Care and the Politics of Transformation (India)

Full Job Description

Caring for groundwater

The PhD study is part of a larger project funded by an ERC Advanced Grant: “Aquiverse: a collaborative study of groundwater care to re-think, improve and support its governance”. The project aspires to learn from what irrigators and other water users do to protect and share the aquifers that they depend on for their livelihoods. Acknowledging how the over-exploitation of aquifers is linked to neo-liberal processes of agricultural intensification, the project is interested in exploring whether such caring practices can form part of a politics of transformation.

The project engages in collaborative studies of six organized initiatives of caring for aquifers – of recharge, conservation, recovery - in three countries (India, Peru and Morocco). How do these initiatives shape people’s connections with aquifers and with each other, and how do they (re-)configure possibilities for living and relating? The India cases centre around selected Participatory Groundwater Management and/or spring shed initiatives, in at least 2 different hydrogeological settings.

Connecting thick empirical description with methodological-theoretical engagement, the project aims to contribute to (among others) reflections on transformational politics, human-environment interactions and collective action (or communing). A central notion in the project is “aquiverse” –a combination of the words ‘aquifer’ and ‘pluriverse’ – . It denotes both a novel transdisciplinary understanding of groundwater and a new method to compare groundwater governance across cases.

The PhD project will have to be completed in 4 years. You will work closely with your supervisors, including Margreet Zwarteveen, as well as with the rest of the Aquiverse research team which includes another PhD fellow and 2 postdoctoral researchers (Carolina Dominguez-Guzman and Lisa Bossenbroek).

What are you going to do

As part of your PhD project, you are expected to engage in two or more of the following activities:

• A detailed ethnographic description of the everyday practices of people involved in the selected initiatives of caring for groundwater.
• A precise institutional and hydro-geological documentation and assessment of the functioning and performance of these initiatives.
• An in-depth historical and political-ecological analysis of how the depletion of groundwater is related to neo-liberal processes of water-based agrarian change and the politics of water (re-)allocation.
• An identification, documentation and analysis of how irrigators navigate pressures – to individualize, intensify or indeed over-exploit – in the study sites.

What do you have to offer

You are someone who:

• Has a (research) master’s degree in human Geography, Development Studies, Anthropology, or a closely related field.
• Is interested in (the role of water in) processes of agrarian change.
• Would like to contribute to (feminist) theorizations of human/society-environment relations (political ecology, environmental humanities).
• Has some familiarity with agrarian India and looks forward to spending time in remote rural areas.
• Has experience with ethnographic research methods but is not afraid of quantification.
• Has some understanding of or is curious to learn about hydrogeology.
• Enjoys engaging in inter-and transdisciplinary collaborations.
• Possesses excellent academic writing and communication skills in English
• Can communicate well in Hindi and preferably also in at least one other Indian language. Some knowledge of Spanish, French and/or Arabic (Darija) is an advantage.
• Cares for their colleagues and collaborators.
• Likes experimenting with creative methods of research and engagement.

What else do we offer you

We offer a temporary employment contract of 38 hours per week for a maximum term of four years. Following a positive assessment, this term will be extended by a maximum of three years, which should result in the conferral of a doctorate. You will attend courses offered by the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) and the Graduate School of Social Sciences as part of the PhD programme.

For this position the University Job Classification profile “Promovendus” applies. Your salary will be €3.204,00 gross per month in the first year and will increase to €4.051,00 in the final year, based on full-time employment of 38 hours per week and in keeping with the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities. We additionally offer an extensive package of secondary benefits, including 8% holiday allowance and a year-end bonus of 8.3%. The UvA offers excellent possibilities for further professional development and education.

In addition, we offer:

• a position in which initiative and input are highly valued

• an enthusiastic and warm team that is open to new colleagues

• an inspiring academic and international working environment in the heart of Amsterdam.

In this department, you will work

Through research, education and social engagement, members of the GID group set out to foster a more just, sustainable and inclusive world. We do this by engaging with, examining and challenging dominant patterns and understandings of ‘development’, as a contested notion, and its relationship to (in)justice. We critically examine what has been done in the name of ‘development’ in the past and the present, and how the impacts of ‘development’ have been distributed among people and places. These insights allow us to (re)imagine the future of development as more just, sustainable and inclusive. As a team, GID advances academic excellence, contributes to methodological innovation and focuses on impact. We work across academic disciplines and engage with social actors in sectors beyond academia and integrate diverse knowledges into our work.

Since its inception in the 1990s, the GID group has responded to and set research agendas for understanding the ever-changing field of IDS. Transformations in political, environmental, economic, social, cultural and technological contexts can contribute to progress, but also to persisting, and often deepening injustices within and between population groups. As an interdisciplinary team, we scrutinise the underlying assumptions and premises of those transformations that exacerbate nequality and injustice, from diverse perspectives and using different research methods. Our work focuses on linking up a range of themes to governance and inclusive development within and across the Global South and North, East and West. In addition, our research applies relational perspectives, highlighting the transnational, translocal and inter-scalar nature of development processes and their impacts.

Do you want to pursue a PhD in political ecology, development studies or environmental humanities? Are you interested in (ground-)water? This PhD project – that examines the practices that individuals and communities in India engage in to care for, protect, rejuvenate and/or recharge the groundwaters they rely on for irrigating their crops – might be of interest to you.

Caring for groundwater

The PhD study is part of a larger project funded by an ERC Advanced Grant: “Aquiverse: a collaborative study of groundwater care to re-think, improve and support its governance”. The project aspires to learn from what irrigators and other water users do to protect and share the aquifers that they depend on for their livelihoods. Acknowledging how the over-exploitation of aquifers is linked to neo-liberal processes of agricultural intensification, the project is interested in exploring whether such caring practices can form part of a politics of transformation.

The project engages in collaborative studies of six organized initiatives of caring for aquifers – of recharge, conservation, recovery - in three countries (India, Peru and Morocco). How do these initiatives shape people’s connections with aquifers and with each other, and how do they (re-)configure possibilities for living and relating? The India cases centre around selected Participatory Groundwater Management and/or spring shed initiatives, in at least 2 different hydrogeological settings.

Connecting thick empirical description with methodological-theoretical engagement, the project aims to contribute to (among others) reflections on transformational politics, human-environment interactions and collective action (or communing). A central notion in the project is “aquiverse” –a combination of the words ‘aquifer’ and ‘pluriverse’ – . It denotes both a novel transdisciplinary understanding of groundwater and a new method to compare groundwater governance across cases.

The PhD project will have to be completed in 4 years. You will work closely with your supervisors, including Margreet Zwarteveen, as well as with the rest of the Aquiverse research team which includes another PhD fellow and 2 postdoctoral researchers (Carolina Dominguez-Guzman and Lisa Bossenbroek).

What are you going to do

As part of your PhD project, you are expected to engage in two or more of the following activities:

• A detailed ethnographic description of the everyday practices of people involved in the selected initiatives of caring for groundwater.
• A precise institutional and hydro-geological documentation and assessment of the functioning and performance of these initiatives.
• An in-depth historical and political-ecological analysis of how the depletion of groundwater is related to neo-liberal processes of water-based agrarian change and the politics of water (re-)allocation.
• An identification, documentation and analysis of how irrigators navigate pressures – to individualize, intensify or indeed over-exploit – in the study sites.

What do you have to offer

You are someone who:

• Has a (research) master’s degree in human Geography, Development Studies, Anthropology, or a closely related field.
• Is interested in (the role of water in) processes of agrarian change.
• Would like to contribute to (feminist) theorizations of human/society-environment relations (political ecology, environmental humanities).
• Has some familiarity with agrarian India and looks forward to spending time in remote rural areas.
• Has experience with ethnographic research methods but is not afraid of quantification.
• Has some understanding of or is curious to learn about hydrogeology.
• Enjoys engaging in inter-and transdisciplinary collaborations.
• Possesses excellent academic writing and communication skills in English
• Can communicate well in Hindi and preferably also in at least one other Indian language. Some knowledge of Spanish, French and/or Arabic (Darija) is an advantage.
• Cares for their colleagues and collaborators.
• Likes experimenting with creative methods of research and engagement.

What else do we offer you

We offer a temporary employment contract of 38 hours per week for a maximum term of four years. Following a positive assessment, this term will be extended by a maximum of three years, which should result in the conferral of a doctorate. You will attend courses offered by the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) and the Graduate School of Social Sciences as part of the PhD programme.

For this position the University Job Classification profile “Promovendus” applies. Your salary will be €3.204,00 gross per month in the first year and will increase to €4.051,00 in the final year, based on full-time employment of 38 hours per week and in keeping with the Collective Labour Agreement of Dutch Universities. We additionally offer an extensive package of secondary benefits, including 8% holiday allowance and a year-end bonus of 8.3%. The UvA offers excellent possibilities for further professional development and education.

In addition, we offer:

• a position in which initiative and input are highly valued

• an enthusiastic and warm team that is open to new colleagues

• an inspiring academic and international working environment in the heart of Amsterdam.

In this department, you will work

Through research, education and social engagement, members of the GID group set out to foster a more just, sustainable and inclusive world. We do this by engaging with, examining and challenging dominant patterns and understandings of ‘development’, as a contested notion, and its relationship to (in)justice. We critically examine what has been done in the name of ‘development’ in the past and the present, and how the impacts of ‘development’ have been distributed among people and places. These insights allow us to (re)imagine the future of development as more just, sustainable and inclusive. As a team, GID advances academic excellence, contributes to methodological innovation and focuses on impact. We work across academic disciplines and engage with social actors in sectors beyond academia and integrate diverse knowledges into our work.

Since its inception in the 1990s, the GID group has responded to and set research agendas for understanding the ever-changing field of IDS. Transformations in political, environmental, economic, social, cultural and technological contexts can contribute to progress, but also to persisting, and often deepening injustices within and between population groups. As an interdisciplinary team, we scrutinise the underlying assumptions and premises of those transformations that exacerbate nequality and injustice, from diverse perspectives and using different research methods. Our work focuses on linking up a range of themes to governance and inclusive development within and across the Global South and North, East and West. In addition, our research applies relational perspectives, highlighting the transnational, translocal and inter-scalar nature of development processes and their impacts.

If you recognize yourself in this profile and are interested in the role, we look forward to receiving your application that should include (in one pdf document):

• An application letter (max 2 pages) describing your motivation and qualifications
• Your CV
• One writing sample of no longer than 25 pages. If you want to include a longer text (such as a master’s thesis), please provide an excerpt.
• Contact information for two academic references. Letters of recommendation are not necessary.

You can apply via the red button until 2 November 2026.

In case of equal qualifications, internal candidates will be given preference over external candidates.

For questions about the vacancy, you can contact: Prof. Margreet Zwarteveen m.z.zwarteveen@uva.nl

Qualifications And Requirements

• Master's

• Master's