Education - dr.ir. LA (Lotje) de Vries

I teach various courses within the bachelor and master programmes International Development Studies of Wageningen University. Most of the courses that I am involved in have a focus on conflict and disaster studies.

I enjoy supervising Master and Bachelor theses projects. I am interested in collaborating with students that seek to critically study local dynamics of development and conflict. I am interested in questions such as: How do external interventions reverberate in everyday lives of people?; How are power and authority performed and enacted by state and non-state actors?; What role do (natural) resources play in claims of belonging and identity? What contributes to and undermines dynamics of social cohesion and stability? Examples of thesis topics that I would welcome to supervise are:

• Everyday perceptions and governance of security and insecurity
• Borders, regional integration and transnationalism
• Linkages between (small) local conflicts and big politics
• Migration and identities in a world on the move
• Livelihoods, resource management and conflicts (e.g. fisheries, pastoralism)