Short-term job opportunity for a Ronin Anthropologist

So, on my recent visit to the Colorado School of Mines, one of the people I got to meet was David Muñoz, who recently retired as a professor there. He has started a cool initiative that he calls “Humanitarian Engineering.” I will write more about it when I understand it better, but, briefly, he wants to instill a greater sense of service, and a greater awareness of cultural issues, in tomorrow’s engineers.

You can read some more about it here.

But here’s today’s action item: Dr. Muñoz has been working to build a water system for a village in Honduras. The village dates back only to 1998, when it was founded by refugees from Hurricane Mitch. The “Humanitarian Engineering” angle means that this project is not just about creating the infrastructure, but also about integrating it into the existing social/cultural milieu. He had a cultural anthropologist on board with with project, but this person had to drop out unexpectedly at the last minute.

This creates a perfect opportunity for the Ronin Anthropologists out there: if you have the right set of skills, and you are currently un- or under-employed, you might be able to fill in.

If you are interested, you need to be a cultural and/or social anthropolgist. You need to be pretty fluent in Spanish. And, you need to be willing and able to go soon. The job would involve going down to Honduras ASAP (ideally sometime in the next few weeks) and staying for a couple of months. Dr. Muñoz has funds to cover travel and expenses, as well as a modest stipend (something on the order of $4000).

If this is something that you might, possibly, be interested in, contact Dr. Muñoz for details: dmunoz@mines.edu. If you have friends (or colleagues, or family members, or former students) who might be a match, please forward this information on to them.

This post is a perspective of the author, and does not necessarily reflect the views of the Ronin Institute.

3 Comments

  1. Help! I need a grant. Do you expect to post an application form soon? I have been working on my book for 20 years, but huge courseloads and childrearing kept me in “Visiting” and teaching-only positions. I’ve taught 21 courses in Psychology, Sociology and Women’s Studies, but have been unable to land a tenure-track job. For the past three years I’ve been unable to get any academic job at all. I’m doing political phone-calling, substitute teaching and selling cable TV door-to-door! My academic work is mostly theoretical, although I want to do empirical studies as well. I only need a small grant at first.

    • Hi Louise,

      It’s probably going to be a while before we’re in a position to offer any grant money directly, months at a minimum. If and when we do, it will probably be restricted to small grants for conference travel or pilot projects. Keep checking back, though, as things will be evolving.

      Jon

      • Thank you, Jon. It is stunning that you have seen this need and begun to answer it. I will keep checking back. I am writing something about my project(s). I do think they will be quite important to others besides myself.

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