Find Academic Supervisors

Michael HöckelmannView profile

Professor

• Chinese History
• Medieval History
• Gender History
• +4 more

Michael Höckelmann is Professor of State and Society of China at Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg since 2019. Previously, he served as a Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh (2018-2019), Lecturer in East Asian History at the University of Manchester (2017-2018), and Assistant Professor at Hong Kong Baptist University (2015-2017). He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Münster in 2013 with a dissertation on Li Deyu (787-850). His primary research interests focus on pre-modern Chinese history, particularly medieval China (2nd-10th centuries CE), with specializations in gender history (especially eunuch studies), institutional history, and Chinese philology. Höckelmann explores how historical actors in imperial China perceived historical time and how they appropriated ancient institutions and knowledge in their own present. His work often examines the relationship between religion, politics, and biography in Tang Dynasty China. His extensive publication record demonstrates a consistent focus on the social and political roles of eunuchs throughout Chinese history, particularly during the Tang Dynasty. He has also contributed significantly to the study of punitive emasculation, military institutions, and the intersection of gender and power in medieval China. His research reveals how marginalized groups like eunuchs navigated and influenced imperial court politics despite their official exclusion from mainstream political structures. British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship Schneider-Sasakawa Fund Scholarship Höckelmann has served as a reviewer for numerous prestigious journals including Chinese Literature: Essays, Articles, Reviews; Journal of Asian Studies; Journal of the British Association for Chinese Studies; Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society; Journal of World History; Monumenta Serica; Reviews in History; Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung; and Zeitschrift für Religionswissenschaft. His current research project 'Empire and Its Dysfunction: Classicising Learning and Careers in Middle Period China' examines career paths of middling officials during the Tang-Song transition period. He has also contributed to public scholarship through appearances on BBC Radio 4's 'In Our Time' program discussing 'The Eunuch' (2015) and 'The Battle of Talas' (2014), and contributed entries to the Database of Religious History at the University of British Columbia.

Rajiv MaherView profile

Research Professor

• Corporate Social Responsibility
• Business Ethics
• Human Rights and Business
• +4 more

Rajiv Maher is a Research Professor in the Department of Strategy and Leadership at EGADE Business School, Tecnológico de Monterrey, where he leads the Thematic Area Research Group (GAT) on Social Innovation and Sustainability. His educational background includes: PhD in Management from Cranfield University Master's Degree in Human Settlements and Environment from Pontifical Catholic University of Chile BA (Hons) Tourism Management from Leeds Beckett University Maher specializes in empirical evaluations of Corporate Social Responsibility impacts since 2007, with recent focus on Human Rights and Business. His fieldwork spans mining communities in Chile, Brazil, Peru, and Guatemala across extractive industries. Research examines community resistance dynamics, corporate legitimacy strategies, and Indigenous rights in resource conflicts. Methodologically combines political ecology with organizational studies to analyze power asymmetries between corporations, states, and communities. His publications reveal consistent focus on Latin American extractive industries, particularly mining and hydropower conflicts, with emphasis on Chilean case studies. Key themes include corporate-community engagement failures, Indigenous rights violations, and remediation justice processes following environmental disasters. Award highlights: Best International Business Paper, Critical Management Studies division, Academy of Management Annual Meeting (2021) Maher consults for IFC (World Bank's private sector arm) on extractive industry governance. Current research investigates corporate responses to human rights accusations and community resistance tactics in resource-dependent regions. Leads collaborative projects with Latin American Indigenous groups examining political CSR shortcomings. His work operates at the intersection of business ethics, political ecology, and Indigenous studies through field-based empirical research across multiple natural resource sectors.

Maria Eriksson BaazView profile

Professor

• International Relations
• African Politics
• Critical Security Studies
• +7 more

Maria Eriksson Baaz is Professor in Political Science specializing in International Politics at Uppsala University's Department of Government within the Faculty of Social Sciences. Her expertise centers on critical analyses of power, violence, and knowledge production with deep empirical engagement in African contexts, particularly the Democratic Republic of Congo. Her research interests span international relations, critical security studies, postcolonial theory, and gender studies with a focus on politics in and on Africa. She has pioneered work on conflict-related sexual violence, examining both perpetrator perspectives and survivor experiences, while challenging conventional framings of sexual violence as a 'weapon of war.' Her scholarship consistently interrogates colonial continuities in security discourse, development practices, and knowledge production. Eriksson Baaz leads significant research initiatives funded by the Swedish Research Council, including 'Exploring the research backstage' (2018-2020) investigating ethical issues surrounding local research brokers in insecure zones, and 'Sexual Violence along the War and Peace Continuum' (2019-2022) bridging scholarship on wartime and peacetime sexual violence. Her methodological contributions emphasize ethical fieldwork practices and decolonizing research approaches. She serves in influential advisory roles as a member of the Expert Group on Ethics at the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), the Scientific Advisory Board at Sida, and the Ethics Examination Authority (Etikprövningsmyndigheten), where she shapes national research ethics standards. Her scholarly impact extends through extensive publications addressing decolonial perspectives on development aid, critical analyses of security governance, and nuanced examinations of gendered violence in conflict settings. She collaborates internationally with researchers like Mats Utas, Swati Parashar, and Maria Stern on cutting-edge projects that challenge dominant paradigms in political science and security studies.