The Freedom of the Streets Research Project is looking for a:

Postdoctoral researcher, 30 months, 0.7 FTE, Amsterdam/Tokyo. Project sponsored by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO)

This postdoctoral project will reconstruct women’s use of urban space in the biggest city in the early modern world: Edo. It aims to enlighten the gendering of urban space during Edo’s transformation from a castle town to O-Edo, the Great City of commoners. It is one of five closely-related projects, which together aim to systematically analyse the gendering of urban space in pre-modern Eurasia.

The postdoctoral project will make use of a wide range of sources, including guide books and surveys, prints and popular fiction, historical maps, records on the governance and day-to-day use of urban space, such as the Edo Machibure Shûshei (1648-1858) and Senyo Ruishu (1716-1853). The materials for this project are held in libraries and museums in the Netherlands (including the Asian Library of the University of Leiden and the Rijksmuseum) as well as in collections and archives in Japan (the National Archives of Japan, the National Diet Library and Tokyo Municipal Archives). It is expected that the postdoctoral researcher will travel to Japan for research visits.

Tasks will include:

• contribution towards the project database with observations of gendered movement in Edo;
• contribution towards the project database of visual materials;
• presenting (intermediate) research results at national and international workshops and conferences;
• delivering a number of publications directly related to the Freedom of the Streets project in international journals and/or as chapters with leading presses, both individually as well as in cooperation with other project members;
• participation in meetings of the project research group;
• assisting with organizational matters connected to the project, such as conference and workshop organization.

Please click below for more information on:
how to apply
the Freedom of the Streets project