I teach and write about international politics.
Recently, I’ve been researching anticolonialism, transnational solidarities, and education.
I teach courses on sociology, politics, human rights, transnational feminism, Black internationalism, the politics of Africa, social research, and (most recently) transformative justice.
As a professor and researcher, I collaborate with many kinds of people to learn about world politics. My goal is to support working-class, incarcerated, and other underrepresented students as they share their knowledge and visions for a better world. With students, I learn from abolitionist, Indigenous, de/anticolonial, and transnational feminist thought/practice.
photo: Yasmine Genena and Jonneke Koomen. Photo by Frank Miller.
recent writing
Lespiki mi: Respect for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender people in Suriname (with Carla Bakboord) 2023Land of the freed people in Africa is a Country 2022International relations as if people matter in Journal of Narrative Politics 2021
current research
I want to understand how people resist white supremacy and racial capitalism. To this end, I am studying the life and work of Anton de Kom, an Afro-Surinamese labour organizer active in the 1930s. He tried to build multiracial coalitions to fight for the liberation of colonized and exploited peoples in Suriname, the Netherlands, and beyond.
In his book, Wij Slaven van Suriname (We Slaves of Suriname), Anton de Kom developed new forms of scholarship to recognize the ways enslaved people, indentured workers, maroons and Indigenous peoples resisted slavery and colonial rule.
A beautiful translation of the book's epilogue is available here and a full translation of We Slaves was published in English in 2022.
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Anton de Kom’s work and life are rarely studied in International Relations. But students and teachers of world politics can learn a lot from Anton de Kom’s transnational activist scholarship. I'll post updates on my research on this page