The Environment, Health and Societies Laboratory was established in 2009 as the first international research unit founded in sub-Saharan Africa by the CNRS. From the outset, it has had two main objectives: to promote scientific relations and the sharing of knowledge and research tools between researchers in the Global South and Global North, and to develop interdisciplinary research at the intersection of the humanities, social sciences, environmental sciences and biological and medical sciences, focusing on the major health, social and ecological challenges facing West Africa.
The laboratory's new headquarters are located in the heart of the UCAD campus in Dakar and offer spaces dedicated to interdisciplinary and participatory research. Around forty colleagues from the faculties of Arts and Social Sciences, Science and Technology, and Medicine come together here. We welcome postdoctoral researchers, doctoral students and master's students from UCAD, as well as from European universities, primarily in France. The laboratory is organised into four teams, each with scientific objectives that contribute to the unit's overarching goal of systematically and collaboratively documenting and analysing the complex relationships between specific environments, health conditions, and social dynamics in West Africa. This is achieved through interdisciplinary, participatory co-construction of research themes with communities, and field surveys in the humanities, social sciences, environmental sciences, biological sciences, and medical sciences. We host numerous international research programmes, as well as two observatories based in Sahelian territories: the 'Great Green Wall' in the north of the country and the peri-urban areas undergoing modernisation on the outskirts of Dakar. These are the “Téssékéré Human-Environment Observatory” and the “Eco-Citizen Observatory of Pollution and Urbanisation in the Sebikotane-Diamniadio-Bargny region”.
We are looking for curious candidates who are open to new experiences. They should be ready to join existing research groups working on topics related to the laboratory's areas of interest. Our ideal candidates will be willing to collaborate with physicians, ecological scientists, anthropologists and local communities in rapidly changing environments. We are looking for candidates whose perspectives, practices, experiences and disciplines will contribute to and enrich our research. Fluency in French would be an advantage.