Professor Christina Welsch, History Department
Project Description
This project is part of the first phase of a multi-year international research project, “Sailing with the French: Labour, Trade, and Mobility in the 18th-century Indian Ocean,” examining the French imperial presence in the Indian Ocean. Where conventional histories describe the Indian Ocean in this period as one increasingly dominated by the British, studying the French helps to reveal a more complex story with a much wider range of actors. To bring this diversity to light, we are creating a searchable database of more than 1200 voyages undertaken by the French East India Company. I am seeking a research assistant to help to convert the data from PDF to Excel format and to categorize the data to make it queryable. (For instance, a record that lists a crew member as a cook should be marked with 111, the category for specialized civilian labor.) Full training/tutorials will be provided, but reading knowledge of French is preferred.
Prerequisite Classes/Skills Required
Reading knowledge of French preferred
Please reach out if you have any questions about the project or the position. This project does NOT require existing familiarity with the history of France or the Indian Ocean.
Time expectations
8 hours per week for 14 weeks