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Role

Marjoke Oosterom is a research fellow in the Power and Popular research cluster at IDS. She holds a PhD from IDS and has a background in comparative politics and international development studies. Her research concentrates on how experiences of violence, conflict and forced displacement affect forms of agency, citizenship, and everyday politics and governance. Her work contributes to debate on civic space and fragile and conflict-affected settings. 

Marjoke has developed specific expertise on how young people’s participate in politics through formal and informal channels, and how they respond to insecurity and violence. She leads the IDS Strategic Research Initiative 'Ensuring decent employment and inclusive politics for youth'. She has built a portfolio of research projects on youth politics, citizenship, peace and security within this initiative.  Her current research on youth extends to the politics of employment and informal labour, and how youth navigate the formal and informal rules and intermediaries that govern local economies.

Marjoke’s current research focuses on (NorGlobal); and she is the Principal Investigator on an ESRC-funded project on and the informal economy in Zimbabwe; and a British Academy-funded project on young women’s responses to sexual violence in the workplace in Uganda and Bangladesh.

Marjoke uses qualitative approaches and likes to use participatory, visual methods like Photo Voice. She has facilitated youth-led research, and in her research with young people she often uses creative methods such as storytelling, arts, and theatre.

Apart from research she has been involved in advisory services for policy makers and international NGOs working on democratic governance, citizen participation, and youth and peacebuilding. Most of her research is carried out in collaboration with civil society actors, in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Country experience: Zimbabwe, Uganda, Kenya, South Sudan, Nigeria.

For PhD applicants

Marjoke welcomes PhD applications on the following topics:

-       Effects of violence and violent conflict on citizenship, agency, and governance, including in informal urban settlements, contexts of forced displacement and humanitarian settings, as well as post-conflict settings.

-       Civic space; civil society in contexts of political violence, surveillance, and armed conflict.

-       Youth, peacebuilding, security, the role of young people in (post)conflict settings, youth in the informal economy, youth protest, and other forms of youth action/agency.

-       Forced displacement, the agency of refugees and IDPs, and camp governance.

 She full profile and publications here: