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I have an interdisciplinary background in social sciences with a focus on anthropology, human rights and rights-based development. My PhD was awarded the faculty dissertation prize in 2017 and the research prize of the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation in 2018. An updated version has just been published (partly open access) with Bristol University Press under the title 'Contested civil society in Myanmar: Local Change and Global Recognition': see here for hybrid access

My research focuses on social and political activism on 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. I recently published articles on civil society in Kenya and Myanmar, and am working with Seng Bu on an article about the Myanmar diaspora in the Netherlands.

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). In 2021-2023 I conducted a follow-up project in which I further explored community relations with CSOs in Ghana and Kenya, and developed a toolkit for development practitioners. For this project I partnered with Partos and RIVA Illustrations. Two cartoons coming out of this project can be found under publications. This project has been shortlisted for the Routledge Area Studies Impact Award.

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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