Research

Research Interests:

I am a multidisciplinary researcher with a background in conflict studies and ethnographic research. My research interests are centred around conflict dynamics regarding de-facto states in the extended sense. Broadly speaking, I am interested in how the uncertain geo-political status of de-facto states translate into the tangible everyday environment of such entities and their populations. I hereby focus for example on the relation between materialities and socio-political dynamics such as borderization, ruins, billboards etc. In summary, I am very much interested in the effects and affects of violent and structural conflict on people, their environment, their socio-political relationships and how it creates different pathways over longer periods of time. Lately I have been focusing on our understanding of the concept of crisis and the tangibility of the chronicity of protracted crises. How does such a crisis look like, how does it differ and what everyday examples showcase the chronicity?  My main geographic focus at the moment is the post-Soviet sphere, with a specific focus on the semi-recognized, de-facto Republic of Abkhazia, the Republic of Georgia and Ukraine.

Methodologically I am very interested in issues regarding wellbeing, uncertainty and paranoia during fieldwork in difficult environments. How do certain emotions affect our work as researchers, relations with interlocutors and our field?

In the past I have been a Fulbright fellow at the University of Colorado, Boulder (2019), a research fellow of the Moving Matters Research Group at the University of Amsterdam (2023-2024) and am currently a member of the Eur-Asian Borderlab group at Tallinn University and the Asian Borderland Research Network (ABRN) at the International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden.

Current Research:
I am currently the P.I. in a research project at Aarhus University and the University of Amsterdam, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark (2022-2024) titled: Territorial Phantom Pain: Exploring the Post-Conflict Environment of Territorial Loss, Crisis and Non-Return in the Republic of Georgia. With this project, I focus on of the effects of territorial loss, and prolonged crisis through displacement and its aftermath in a contemporary ‘frozen conflict’. Its aim is to deepen our understanding of the tangible affect of prolonged crisis, the usage of the concept of ‘crisis’ in policies and political strategies, and the effect that forced prolonged crisis has on the affected population group.

Teaching:
I have been involved in teaching in the Human Security MA program for the last 9 years. I have been teaching the courses of Core Concepts Contextualized and Conflict Dynamics & Management, while also supervising Master Students during their MA thesis writing process.

Other:
I am on the steering committee of the Aarhus Center for Conflict Management (Aarcon). For more information, please have a look at: https://aarcon.au.dk/, In addition, I am the editor-in-chief of the Aarcon Report, the open-access publication series of Aarcon.

Publications

Journal Articles

Edited Volumes

Book Chapters