Th Undergraduate Research Fellows Program provides ILR undergraduates with the opportunity to work with a professor during academic year 2023-2024. This program was developed in response to numerous requests we have received from undergraduates for research opportunities and in the hope that it will facilitate one-on-one student/faculty interactions. Students participating in this program will receive an hourly pay of $16.50 per hour for up to 10 hours a week. Awards will be made on a one semester basis with renewal possible for the second semester.  Students may not earn credit for the research project during the semester or year they are being paid as a research assistant.

The Country and the City in the Indian Himalayas

Undergraduate Research Fellows will help Prof. Sarah Besky process and organize ethnographic and historical materials for a new book project on agrarian life and labor, colonial history, and representations of place in India’s eastern Himalayas. The key questions that Research Fellows will engage with are: 1) how did colonial development shape the landscape and labor relations in the eastern Himalayas, which sat on the margins of the British Empire? And 2) what are the effects of colonial-era development in the present?  The title of the project is a reference to the work by the cultural theorist Raymond Williams, and his work on the meanings of the countryside in Britain. This project asks similar questions about the making and maintenance of the countryside, including understanding how the place of labor in dominant representations of place shapes the ability of the people who have long called the region home to stay on their land. The future of life, land, and labor here is especially fraught in the context of climate crisis.  Work will include: 1) Organizing scholarly materials in bibliographic software (Zotero); 2) Collating archival materials; and 3) Conducting research on social media and popular media on representations of the Indian Himalaya. The position may also include transcribing audio and visual materials. Applicants with proficiency in Nepali or Bengali should indicate this in their materials. – with Professor Sarah Besky

To apply for this Fall 2023 research opportunity, please click Apply below.