I am professor of Social and Political Anthropology of Latin America. Since 2008 and 2018, I held a parttime position as Professor of Latin American Studies (especially Mexico) at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Groningen, where I also directed of the Mexican Studies Centre. In Mexico I have been a research fellow at El Colegio de México, the Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Xochimilco) and the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. I was a visiting researcher at the Universty of Oxford in 2010, and at the Institute of Advanced Study at the University of Warwick in 2017. In the spring of 2023 I will spend a semester long research stay at the KU Leuven. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to do field research in Mexico, both ethnographic and historical. 

Interests
Latin America (especially Mexico), political anthropology, state-making, caciquismo, political culture, popular religion (Santa Muerte), drug trafficking, crime, violence, higher education, democratisation, transition and development.