Profile

Dirk Kruijt has been Professor of Development Studies from 1993 to 2008 and is at present Professor Emeritus at Utrecht University. He is also the past president of the Netherlands Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies (NALACS) (1994-1998). Currently, he is a Research Fellow Centre for Military Studies (CEMIS), Faculty of Military Science, Stellenbosch University, South Africa; and an Investigador Integrado Centro de Estudos Internacionais (CEI), Instituto Universitário de Lisboa (ISCTE – IUL), Portugal.

He ahas been a Research Fellow or Visiting Professor at the Institute of Development Studies (IDS) at the University of Sussex (1997); at the Institute of Latin America Studies (ILAS) of the University of London (2004); at the Latein Amerika Institut of the Freie Universität Berlin (2009); at the Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut Berlin (2012); at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela (2014-2019).

In Latin America, he was a research fellow at El Colegio de México (Centro de Estudios Internacionales, CEI, 1994); at the Instituto de Estudios Peruanos (1996, 2002); at the Instituto Universitário de Pesquisas do Rio de Janeiro (IUPERJ, 2003); at the Fundação Getulio Vargas (FGV, 2008, 2012). He was also a  long – time visiting professor of the Latin American FLACSO system (Facultad LatinoAmericana de Ciencias Sociales, 1990 – 2018) in Costa Rica, Cuba, El Salvador and Guatemala. He has conducted fieldwork in Bolivia, Brazil, the five Central American countries, Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, the former Netherlands Antilles and Aruba, Paraguay, Peru, and Suriname.

With a certain frequency, he served as an advisor to the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Hague (1986-1988, 1997-2000), with formal posting at embassies in Central America (1988-1992) and Nicaragua (2006), and long assignments in Peru (1970-1973, 1978-1979, 1979–1980), Colombia (1980-1981), Surinam (2000-2002), and Bolivia (2012-2013).

Interests

Latin America and the Caribbean, Spain, Portugal, and Lusophone Africa (social exclusion, poverty and informalisation; political violence, state, and non-state armed actors; military governments and civil-military governments; guerrilla movements and political insurgency; and urban violence).