I have an interdisciplinary background in social sciences with a focus on anthropology, human rights and rights-based development. My PhD on civil society in Myanmar was awarded the faculty dissertation prize in 2017 and the research prize of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation in 2018. An updated version will be published with Bristol University Press under the title 'Contested civil society in Myanmar: Local Change and Global Recognition'.

My research focuses on social and political activism at various levels: community, regional and (trans)national. I particularly look at issues of voice, representation and legitimacy within rights-based advocacy. I study the views and identities of organised Burmese civil society actors, their transnational advocacy strategies, and their relationship with Western supporters. In 2022 I published articles on documentation work by civil society actors of human rights violations in Myanmar (Journal of Human Rights Practice) and on the experiences of young ethnic women in Myanmar civil society (Journal of Burma Studies).

I have worked for various civil society organisations in The Netherlands on issues such as discrimination, international justice and refugee rights, and served as a board member for the Dutch Foundation for Peace Studies (Stichting Vredeswetenschappen). I was a postdoctoral researcher in projects on land rights advocacy in Kenya at Radboud University and on urban intermediaries in the Netherlands at Tilburg University. For these projects I co-authored reports for the Dutch Ministries of Foreign Affairs (BuZa) and the Interior (BZK), and published an article on civil society legitimacy in Kenya (Canadian Journal of Development Studies). I now coordinate a follow-up project in which I further explore community relations with CSOs in Ghana and Kenya, and develop content for development practitioners. For this project I partner with Partos and RIVA Illustrations. Two cartoons coming out of this project can be found under publications.

I currently coordinate the education programme of the Anthropology department at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, and teach interdisciplinary courses in Conflict and Peacebuilding and thesis writing. I am co-supervisor of PhD candidate Linggar Putra on the topic of Riverine Hydrosocial Dynamics in Surabaya, Indonesia.

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