“My research interests cover the broad spectrum of young peoples geographies to the geographies of sports”

Gijs van Campenhout is Assistant Professor Geography, Youth & Education at the Faculty of Geosciences. He works in the Geography and Education section where he, amongst other things, coordinates the Educational Master called Geography, Education and Communication. 

Gijs has a broad interest in spatial, social, and educational issues, which he approaches from multiple perspectives. His areas of interest include migration and (non-)belonging, citizenship, place attachment, (young) people geography, risky (outdoor) play, experiential learning, and (geography) education. In his researches with young people, such as the ‘Check your place’-project, Gijs aims to give the youth a voice in spatial and societal matters. 

For his Ph.D. research, of which the papers are published in various international peer-reviewed journals, he focused on the paradoxality of football players with migration backgrounds in national football teams of who their formal and moral belonging to the nation can be questioned. While his research is framed in the historical context of the football World Cup (1930-2018), he uses international football as a prism to further academic and sociological debate around international migration, (re)configurations of citizenship, and questions of national belonging.