Education
2004-2007: PhD in Political and Social Sciences (University of Ghent) Title: The Power of Protection: Governance and Transborder Trade on the Congo-Ugandan Frontier
1999-2000: MSc in International Relations (London School of Economics and Political Science) Specialisation: Nationalism; Conflict and Peace Studies
1995-1997: MA in Contemporary History (University of Ghent, Belgium)
1992-1994: BA in History (University of Antwerp, Belgium)
Work experience
2022- : Senior Assistant Professor, Section Geography, Department of History and Cultures, University of Bologna
2010-2021: Lecturer & Research Fellow, Department of Geography, University of Zurich, Switzerland
2007-2010: Lecturer, Department of Social and Political Science, University of Ghent, Belgium
2003-2007: Research Fellow, University of Ghent, Belgium
2001-2003: Analyst, International Peace Information Service (IPIS), Antwerp, Belgium
2000-2001: journalist-documentalist, MaoMagazine, Brussels, Belgium
1999-2001: journalist-documentalist, Knack Magazine, Brussels, Belgium
Projects
Participatory Projects
2021-2022: Digital Gold (with Zürcher Hochschule der Künste & Museum für Gestaltung
(scientific director) (https://museum-gestaltung.ch/de/ausstellung/planet-digital/)
This section of a larger exhibition on digitalization (Planet Digital) offers insights beneath the surfaces of the mobile tech industry and focuses on the concrete challenges and living conditions of artisanal gold miners in the region of Kamituga (Democratic Republic of Congo).
2017-2018 (PI): Black Mediterranean: Archaeology of a Frontier (www.mic-c.org) (self-funded collaboration)
This arts and social science project analyzes the way Subsaharan-Mediterranean relationships are congealing in the Southern parts of the Italian peninsula as a result of the intermittent, but ever-more permanent African settlement in rural agrarian societies. In the research long-term ethnographic engagement with the terrain is combined with participatory artistic methods involving architectural, photographic and archaeological elements.
2013-2015: City Ghettoes of Today
(scientific director) (funded by ECF: http://cityghettos.com)
This participatory theatre project involved 9 international activities in 6 European cities (Bologna, Milan, Helsinki, Warsaw, Paris, Berlin) run by artists from different artistic backgrounds from all over Europe. The artistic workshops were run in migrant districts of those 6 cities and were being prepared in collaboration with a network of organisations working on the themes of migration and art in the selected areas. As a scientific director, I was responsible for the analysis and research in two cities (Bologna and Antwerp) and I coordinated the cooperation across these cities.
Projects with 3rd party funding
2023-2025 (collaborator): The border is no more, long live the border: de-materialization and re-materialization of internal borders in the European Union (PRIN Italian Science National Council)
The project aims to explore processes of de- and re-materialization of land borders within the selectively fluid Schengen space, by focusing on three key northern Italian borderscapes marked by different histories and border practices: the border with Slovenia in Trieste, with Austria at Brenner, and with France in Ventimiglia
2020-2024 (director&PI): Frontier Settlements: territories of artisan mining labour in Africa (funding: SNSF)
This research project reveals how the extraction of the world’s underground resources territorializes through artisan mining labour. It is funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and co-hosted by the Department of Geography, University of Zürich, the Department of Human Geography, Lund University, and it is in partnership with the University of Zimbabwe, the University of Ouagadougou I, the Institut National des Sciences des Sociétés in Burkina Faso, and the Groupe d’Etudes sur les
Conflits et la Sécurité Humaine (GEC-SH) based at CERUKI/ISP in Bukavu, DRC.
2016-2017 (director&PI): New plantations: migrant mobility, ‘illegality’ and racialisation in European agricultural labour (funding: Swiss Network for International Studies: http://www.snis.ch/project_new-plantations-migrant-mobility-illegality-and-racialisation-european-agricultural-labour)
This project engages in a comparative enquiry into the triple dynamics of race, space and “illegality” in the reproduction of migrant precarious labour conditions in European agro-industrial labour markets. What are the mechanisms of differential inclusion and segregation of migrant workers in the agro-industrial labour markets? We try to answer this question through a systematic comparison of five original case studies that are currently almost uncovered by research on migrant labour in Italian, Swiss and Belgian horticulture.
2013-2019 (supervisor): Governing Conflict Minerals in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (funding: Swiss National Science Foundation: http://www.snf.ch)
The project aims to test the validity of the ‘resource curse’ paradigm through a comparative case study analysis of transnational mineral governance in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). It specifically concentrates on the transformation of the rights of use and access to natural resources enacted through the classification, standardization and formalization of these rights in selected mining enclaves in Katanga and South Kivu (Eastern DRC). The focus of the project will be on one specific set of minerals (tantalite, tin ore and tungsten – the three T’s) and their regulation through the ITRI Tin Supply Chain Initiative (iTSCi). In doing so it assesses the way this reform process impacts on the performance of mineral markets in both mining areas, and what impact this has on the institutional choice patterns of mine workers. In sum the study aims to provide more insights into the political ecology of natural resource markets in countries emerging from protracted armed conflict, specifically detailing (1) the transnational dimension of economic regulation and (2) its impact on the institutional choice patterns of direct natural users of natural resources in the specific case of the DRC.
2012-2015 (co-PI): Economic Conditions of Displacement (funded by FAFO and Norwegian research Council: http://www.humanitarianstudies.no/projects/economic-conditions-of-displacement/)
This project investigated the relationships and economic arrangements between the internally displaced people (IDPs) and local host communities in five different case study areas representing various forms of human displacement : Uganda, Liberia, DRC and Zimbabwe. We used an integrated approach focusing on the three key-stakeholders: displaced people, host communities, and national and international humanitarian actors, combining large surveys with ethnographic qualitative techniques.
2007-2011 (collaborator): MICROCON: a micro-analysis of violent conflicts (funded by the EU 6th framework: http://www.microconflict.eu)
MICROCON was a five-year research programme funded by the European Commission, which took an innovative micro-level, multidisciplinary approach to the study of armed conflict. The main outputs of MICROCON come from 28 different research projects working in over 40 countries, covering eight main themes. As a PI of the theme Governance and Institutions, I was set to answer the following questions: to what extent can actions of violent political or economic entrepreneurs promote order and provide public goods? What do these ‘new forms of governance’ include, who do they integrate, who is leading them? What impact do these stateless patterns of power have on processes of formal state-building? The project involved a joint edited collection as well as numerous policy-oriented outputs archived on the MICROCON website.
2005-2006 (co-analyst): Food security and protracted conflict in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (funded by the UN Food and Agricultural Organization: http://www.fao.org/economic/esa/)
This two-year consultancy aimed at increasing the resilience of rural livelihoods amid armed conflict, following a twin track approach of investigating household capabilities and institutional responses. As co-analyst I was responsible for studying one area of eastern DR Congo known as the Grand Nord (in North Kivu). The project produced numerous
policy and academic outputs archived on the FAO website.
2003-2004 (PI): The impact of civil war in Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (funded by NOVIB-11.11.11-NIZA: http://www.oxfamnovib.nl/)
This two-year project involved an in-depth study of the transformative effects of protracted warfare on Eastern Congo’s society, resulting in numerous policy interventions as well as an edited collection titled Conflict and Social Transformation in Eastern Congo (Academia Press).
2000-2001 (PI): Network War: An Introduction to Congo ’s Privatized War Economy (funded by: Centre national de coopération au développement, Belgium)
This project involved an investigative analysis of Central Africa’s war economy, including arms sales and the illegal trafficking of minerals by international companies based in the global North. The project produced a report with the same title, which denounced the practices of European companies in the illegal minerals trade.
