Robrecht Declercq is postdoctoral researcher of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) since the 1st of October 2017, and affiliated to the History Department of the Ghent University. His main research interests include business, global economic and environmental history. He teaches on economic and environmental history.

In February 2015, Declercq defended his Phd on the global connections of the Leipzig Fur Industry at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. This phd-research examined how a local industrial district – like the Leipzig fur industry – characterised by many small to medium sized businesses successfully operated on the world market in the period between 1870 and 1939. It bridges the interior-based research tradition on industrial districts with that of global economic history. In 2016, his research was nominated for the Best Dissertation Award in Bergen (Norway), by the European Business History Assocation (EBHA). As of June 2017, the phd has been published as a book by Routledge, titled “World Market Transformation: Inside the German Fur Capital Leipzig 1870 – 1939”.

His current research project is also situated on the crossroads of business and global economic history, examining the impact of nationalizations in the copper industry (Central Africa and Latin America) on the global political economy.

Projecten

Projecten als co-promotor

A Belgian multinational entreprise in the making of the first global economy. The business empire of Edouard Empain, 1880-1914 (2015 - 2019)

Projecten als postdoctoraal medewerker

Red Fever. The natural resource company and the commodification of the global copper frontier (1900-1939) (2017 - 2020)

Publicaties

Meest recente publicaties

Volledige bibliografie

Onderwijs

Organizing lecturer

Research Seminar: Economic and Environmental History, with a focus on the history of "sustainability" in which students questions how the huge sustainability challenges influences new directions in historical research and whether historical research can help us to provide helpful solutions and practices.

HPIII (Bachelorpaper), supporting themes on the history of natural resources and commodification from a global history perspective

Thesis supervisor: various subjects in the field of economic history, business history, colonial economic history, migration history

Guest lecturer: ULB (Business History Seminar), Erasmus Mundus Global Studies...

Past lectureships:

Co-lecturer - "Critical Global Theories" (English), Master in History (Faculty of Arts and Philosophy). (Ugent, 2017-2018)

Co-lecturer - "History of the state in Belgium", Bachelor in Public Management (Faculty of Economics) (Ugent, 2017-2018)

Onderzoeksseminarie: economische en ecologische geschiedenis