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Professor Jutta Bakonyi

Professor in Development and Conflict


Affiliations
AffiliationTelephone
Professor in Development and Conflict in the School of Government and International Affairs+44 (0) 191 33 45681

Biography

I joined Durham University in 2012 after three years in Kenya (2009-12), where I managed a Transitional Justice project for the German Civil Peace Service. Prior to that, I worked as Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Magdeburg (2008-09), and as research fellow at the University of Hamburg (2001-04). I also obtained my PhD from the University of Hamburg, but my research was additionally supported by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale) where I studied from 2006 to 2008. From 2004-05 I worked as conflict management expert in Southern Somalia.

My main research interests are on the causes, actors and dynamics of violence and war, orders of violence beyond the state, state dynamics and international interventions. I am also interested in the relation between cities and states, the link between displacement and urbanisation and the political economy that links displacement with urban reconstruction. Currently, I am conducting three research projects. Financed by AHRC/DFID, I compare protection practices of UN and AU military peacekeepers in the DRC and Somalia. The research studies experiences of military personnel and contrasts them with experiences of civilians and aid workers. My second, Carnegie funded research project uses an infrastructural lens to examine international relations between the Arabian Gulf and the Horn of Africa, and the effects of port expansions on the everyday of city dwellers in the Horn. A third, GCRF funded research project, examines how urban poor access infrastructures. It looks into eight cities in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Somaliland and Zimbabwe and works with civil society organisations to improve infrastructural services in marginalised neighbourhoods.

In SGIA, I am currently the Deputy Head of School for Research, and have previously held  the posts of Executive Director for the Durham Global Security Institute (2018-19), Postgraduate Research Director (2015-17), and MSc programme director of the Durham Global Security Institute (2012-15).

Research interests

  • Global Political Sociology
  • State Dynamics and Government beyond the State
  • Actors and Dynamics of Violence and Wars
  • International Interventions, State- and Peacebuilding
  • Displacement and Urbanization
  • Infrastructures and Logistics
  • Bureaucracy and Bureaucratization
  • East Africa

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