Migration
Migration is a central focus in the research of the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University.
Dr. Erik Bähre
Erik Bähre is an economic anthropologist specialized in South Africa. He has conducted ethnographic fieldwork, as well as conducted surveys, in the townships and squatter settlements of Cape Town. His Ph.D. at the ASSR, University of Amsterdam (2002), was an ethnography on how Xhosa migrants in Cape Town, establish burial societies and credit groups. It examined the urban poor’s day-to-day conflicts over money in post-apartheid South Africa. His current research is on South African insurance companies that develop policies for ‘the bottom end of the market’. Erik Bähre is the author of Money and Violence: Financial Self-Help Groups in a South African Township (Brill, 2007) and has published in, among others, African Studies, Current Anthropology, Ethnography, and Journal of Religion in Africa. Erik Bähre has worked at the University of Natal (now University of KwaZulu Natal) (1999-2000), University College Utrecht (2002-2005), and at the University of Amsterdam (2002 and 2004-2007). Keywords: Microfinance, Insurance, Rapid Economic Change, Violence, Urban Studies, Development, South Afr
Dr. Sabine Luning
Sabine Luning’s PhD research dealt with the social dynamics of ritual practices in Burkina Faso, a topic at the crossroads of religious ideas, politics and social identities. She continued studying the contemporary situation of chiefs as well as local perceptions of the natural environment, in particular how these are shaped in wider social arenas such as national elections and development projects. Ever since her first professional experience as anthropologist in a large DGIS project, she has retained an interest in the social relations, power dynamics and organizational culture of development initiatives. Now her research focuses on economic anthropology, in particular the booming business of goldmining in West Africa. Sabine Luning investigates interactions between (representatives of) multilateral organizations, the state, international companies, national entrepreneurs, artisanal miners and local communities as well as the moral discourses that accompany and shape these interactions. Her research is part of the VIDI project I.C.E. in Africa: the relationship between people and the Internal Combustion Engine in Africa, headed by Jan-Bart Gewald. Keywords: Economy, Religion and Religious Ideas, Corporate Social Responsibility, Resource Politics, Migration, Africa
Dr. José van Santen
José van Santen did her Ph.D. research (1986-1988) on processes of Islamisation in West Africa in general and Cameroon in particular. She has followed the ongoing processes of fundamentalism and its implications for the construction of masculinities and femininities (gender). Her research in the NWO project ‘Islam in Africa, moving frontiers’, examines on the way Muslims, both leaders and followers, are engaged in the re-construction of their identities in the context of dissimilar forms of globalization and modernization. José van Santen pays special attention to the process of re-construction among youth. Due to the link between Islam and the ethnic identity of the cattle-keeping Fulangi in Cameroon, she has been intrigued by the relationships and/or clashes (often related to access to resources) between agriculturalists and cattle-keepers/nomads in relation to religion and political processes. José van Santen was previously scientific Director at the Centre of Environment and Development of the University of Dschang in Cameroon and remains involved in issues concerning ‘developmentalism’ and the Environment. Key words: Islam/Islamization, Globalization, Gender, Ethnic and Religious Identity, Processes of migration and access to land, Relation between sedentary and nomadic groups in West Africa
Dr. Ratna Saptari
Ratna Saptari studied anthropology at the University of Indonesia (MA 1984) and at the University of Amsterdam (PhD 1995). Saptari is coordinator of the IIAS-funded Changing Labour Relations in Asia (CLARA) programme she organized several panels and conferences in collaboration with research/teaching institutions in Europe and Asia focusing on topics such as labour, migration, domestic service, social movements and histories of subaltern groups. In addition to several articles and book chapters on these themes, she has also co-edited a number of books: The Household and Beyond: Cultural Notions and Social Practices in the Study of Gender in Indonesia; Labour in Southeast Asia: Local Processes in a Globalized World; and on the politics of history-writing Pemikiran Kembali Penulisan Sejarah Indonesia (Rethinking Indonesian History-Writing). Ratna Saptari is currently writing on and researching ‘The Making and Remaking of the Cigarette Labour Communities in East Java: a comparative study of three cigarette towns, 1913-2003’; ‘Decolonisation and Urban Labour in Indonesia (1920s to 1965): Continuity and Change’and ‘The Cultures of Tobacco in Indonesia and India.’ Keywords: Migration, Social Movements, Labour, Gender, Oral History, South East Asia.
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