Research

I am a political anthropologist interested in how humans resort to and commemorate political violence.

My current book project Beyond What’s Left: Nicaraguan Transnational Solidarity and Political Exile in Germany is a timely political analysis of exile, lifelong leftwing militancy, and transnational solidarity. While solidarity is often portrayed as a supportive political bond, particularly among leftist political movements, this book examines the ways in which solidarities fray and are remade in transnational contexts. Based on thirteen months of ethnographic fieldwork (2018–19), Beyond What’s Left examines the transnational solidarity movement that emerged in Berlin as a response to the brutal repression of mass protests in 2018 in Nicaragua. Examining the negotiations between recent Nicaraguan political exiles, the Nicaraguan community in Berlin, and (former West-) German solidarity brigades, it analyzes how political, cultural, and historical linkages have informed different interpretations and practices of solidarity.

My current research project explores political exile in the 21st century and resistance under authoritarian states by focusing on Nicaraguan exiles’ digitally disseminated poetry.

My next research project explores broader questions about radical leftwing militancy, urban guerrilla tactics, and political violence among the former West German Red Army Faction (RAF), and how these memories of violence have been strategically used by Germany’s far right.

I received my PhD in Social Anthropology at the University of Oslo in 2023 and I am currently a Charles E. Scheidt Fellow at the Institute of Genocide and Mass Atrocity Prevention at Binghamton University.

I am also the co-editor of Anthropology in Action (together with Pardis Shafafi).

My research has been supported by the Sylff Young Leaders Fellowship Fund, the Ibero-American Institute of Berlin, the Wedel Jarlsbergs Fund for International Research, the Forum for Philosophy of Science at the University of Oslo, the Ryoichi Sasakawa Post-Doctoral Research Grant (2022 and 2024), the Individual Development Grant of the United University Professionals at New York State, and the Professional Staff Senate Professional Development Grant at Binghamton University, and the Ibero-American Institute in Berlin.

My pronouns are she / her.