Phd Position in Heritour
The Faculty for Arts and Science and the Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Management Studies at the University of Aruba are pleased to announce a challenging PhD position that examines Representation and regeneration of heritage and tourism economies in small scale insular and geographically remote communities in European Oversees Countries and Territories as part of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Doctoral Network project titled “HERITOUR – Enhancing collaborative synergies between Cultural HERItage and TOURism”.
PhD Position in HERITOUR – Enhancing collaborative synergies between Cultural HERItage and TOURism
(1.0 fte)
About HERITOUR
HERITOUR is a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Network that examines how the cultural heritage and tourism sectors can collaborate more effectively to address shared challenges and reduce the negative impacts of tourism. Cultural heritage represents a major segment of contemporary tourism, yet increasing touristification and overtourism have intensified debates about environmental degradation, social disruption, and pressures on heritage sites. Although European and international policy frameworks promote ethical and sustainable tourism, heritage and tourism governance remains fragmented, with sectors operating under different institutional structures and priorities. HERITOUR investigates how current collaborations function and how cross-sectoral policies can be developed within a democratic and regenerative governance model. The project focuses on hybridisation, sustainability, resilience, and democratisation, and provides interdisciplinary training for Doctoral Candidates.
HERITOUR is a collaboration between Erasmus University Rotterdam, (the Netherlands) University of Stavanger (Norway) Middle East Technical University (Turkey), Mid Sweden University (Sweden), the University of Granada (Spain), and the University of Aruba.
Successful Doctoral Candidates will be seconded at heritage and tourism organisations for the total duration of three months during the employment period. A total of 10 PhD vacancies are available across six universities.
This project is supervised by dr. Luc Alofs (University of Aruba), dr. Naomi Oosterman and prof. dr. Stijn Reinders (both Erasmus University Rotterdam).
The supervising committee of this doctoral trajectory consists of prof. dr. Stijn Reinders (promotor, Erasmus University Rotterdam), dr. Luc Alofs (University of Aruba, co-promotor, daily supervisor), dr. Naomi Oosterman (Erasmus University Rotterdam, co-promotor).
For more information, check the vacancy page of the University of Aruba [https://careers.portal.ua.aw/]. For the other positions, please check the project website [https://heritour.eu/].
About the research project
The objectives of the PhD project at the University of Aruba concerns the Heritour project’s sub-theme Democratisation and can be summarized as follows:
The Doctoral Candidate:
- Identifies participatory and sustainable models for the synergy of the heritage and tourism sectors that mitigate the limitations of scale and remoteness in small island Overseas Countries and Territories (OCT) and continental tourism based economies;
- Identifies the requirements for promoting innovative knowledge and cultural awareness building for remote continental economies and small island OCT’s that mitigate the tension between commodification and indigenous ownership of cultural heritage practices;
- Produces an interdisciplinary multi-case study on OCT and regional continental economies by applying a mixed method research design.
- Apart from producing a doctoral dissertation the Doctoral Candidate develops:
- A nation building and destination branding policy brief dedicated to sustainable and regenerative heritage and tourism economies designed for insular and remote continental economies.
- Professional resources aimed at fostering collaboration between the heritage and tourism sectors specifically tailored to regional continental and OCT’s local practices.
- Best practices for the development of sustainable models for regional economies of small scale insular OCT’s and remote continental regions.