Intro

Nel Vandekerckhove is Assistant Professor Conflict Studies at the Department Political Science, University of Amsterdam. She is the coordinator of the domain Conflict Studies in the Interdisciplinary Social Science Programme, and takes part in the research group Transnational Configurations, Conflict and Governance . She recently completed her doctoral dissertation 'No Land, no Peace: Dynamics of Violent Conflict and Land Use in Assam, India' at the Ghent University (Belgium), and is Associated Research Fellow of the Conflict Research Group, Centre of Third World Studies (UGent) . She is also a Visiting Lecturer at Silchar's Assam University, India.            

Research Interests

My research interests are in militia violence, identity politics and the everyday state in South Asia and Southeast Asia, with special focus on Northeast India, Nepal and the Philippines. Current projects address the contested role of the state in South Asia, non-state forms of regulation, rebel mechanisms of control, and rural vigilantism. The 'post-peace accord' reality in certain areas of Northeast India and in Nepal have brought us to consider a comparative, collaborative project (with UGent and University of Edinburgh) on the life paths of low-rank militia who are assumed to have taken part in DDR processes.

Other work focuses on Asian borderlands in today's world, the meaning of home among IDPs, and the usefulness of deliberative politics in violent conflict.    

Teaching

I have taught a variety of courses in the past few years, which primarily focussed on civil war and displacement, the development-relief nexus, the indigenous rights debate, fieldwork in violent settings. In 2009-2010, at the UvA, the courses have been on qualitative research and mixed methods, inclusion-exclusion in non-Western societies, and rural conflict in South Asia. I also gave postgraduate field training in the Master Conflict and Development, UGent (Location: Mindanao, April 2010).                    

Main Publications

Vandekerckhove, N. (2011) 'Democracy Through the Gun: Challenges of Post-Conflict Reconstruction in War-Torn Assam, India.' In V. Arora en N Jayaram (eds.) Routes and Roots of Democracy in the Himalayas . London: Routledge.
Vandekerckhove, N. and B. Suykens (forthcoming) The Bargaining State in South Asia: Public Authority, Violence and Everyday State Formation. Special Issue, Critique of Anthropology .
Vandekerckhove, N (forthcoming) 'The State, the Chief and the Rebel: Public Authority and Land Dispute in Assam, India', Development and Change .

Vandekerckhove, N. (2009) 'We are Sons of this Soil: The Dangers of Homeland Politics in India's Northeast', Critical Asian Studies 41 (4): 523-48.
Vandekerckhove, N. and B. Suykens (2008) ' The Liberation of Bodoland: Tea, Forestry and Tribal Entrapment in Western Assam', S outh Asia, Journal of South Asian Studies 31(3): 450-71 .
Vandekerckhove, N. (2008) 'Bodoland voor de Bodos: Conflict, Identiteit, and Migratie in Assam, India' (Bodoland for the Bodos: Conflict, Identity, and Migration in Assam). In R. Doom (ed.) Global Trends, Local Conflicts. Ghent: Academia Press, pp.313-330 (in Dutch).
Vandekerckhove, N. (2007) 'The Impact of Conflict on Land Use Systems: Analysis of Rural Livelihoods in the Kachugaon Reserved Forest (Assam)'. CRG Working Paper 10. Ghent: Conflict Research Group.
Vandekerckhove, N. (2006) ' Het Noordoosten van India zoekt al Zestig jaar naar Vrede.' (India's Northeast Stillin Search for Peace), Vrede, Juli-Augustus (in Dutch).
Vandekerckhove, N. (2003) Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA): Een Gerechtvaardigde Strijd of een Veiligheidsprobleem (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA): A Justified Battle or A Security Problem?) Unpublished Master's Thesis, University of Ghent (in Dutch).

Other interests

Charity Run for War Child , Dam tot Damloop, Amsterdam (NL), 19 September 2010
Charity Run for Shelter , Royal Parks Half Marathon, London (UK), 10 October 2010
Supporter of Labdoo