Postdoctoral Researcher - Wiener Anspach Fellowship

  Université libre de Bruxelles
  Faculté de Philosophie et Sciences sociales
  Centre de recherche Mondes Modernes & Contemporains
  Campus du Solbosch - CP 133/01
  Avenue F.D. Roosevelt, 50
  B-1050 Bruxelles

  davide.martino@ulb.be

  LinkedIn
  Academia
  ORCID

BIO

As a postdoctoral researcher at the ULB, I work on a project entitled “Land of Water: constructing the hydraulic environment in colonial Suriname, c. 1650–1850”. My research is generously funded by a Wiener-Anspach Postdoctoral Fellowship. Prior to joining the ULB, I worked as Postdoc in architectural history at the Universität Bern (Switzerland). I hold a PhD in History (2023) from St John’s College, University of Cambridge (UK), where I also completed an MPhil in Early Modern History (2017) and a BA in History (2016). From 2017 to 2019 I worked as a teacher in a British state primary school, and I remain passionate about the role of education in society.

Présentation des recherches

My research project, “Land of Water: constructing the hydraulic environment in colonial Suriname, c. 1650–1850”, draws on the insights of environmental history to understand how local environments in the Dutch colony of Suriname were constructed by human and more-than-human agents. Following the lead of historians of technology and architecture, it focuses on the built environment—particularly the colony’s hydraulic infrastructure—as a palimpsest of past practices, technologies, and values. Combining the lenses of these two historical disciplines, “Land of Water” sheds new light on an understudied part of the Dutch colonial empire, and contributes to current debates about the legacies of colonialism, enslavement, and the extraction of natural resources.
Water was already a central concern of my PhD, for which I focused on early modern European cities. Taking Augsburg, Florence, and Amsterdam as case-studies, I researched the work of hydraulic experts at the terraqueous interface between cities and their waters. Their interventions in the liquid environment are one source of our present relationship with (urban) waters, and will be the focus of my first book.

Domaines de recherche

  • Environmental history, water history
  • Urban and architectural history
  • History of science and technology
  • History of cartography and hydrography
  • Transnational, comparative history

Travaux sélectionnés