I am currently a Master student of History at the VUB, affiliated to the Social History of Capitalism Research group (SHOC), and a student-intern on FORAGENCY as part of the Talent for Research (TvO) program. In 2022 I finished my bachelor-paper on the Paysannat scheme in postwar Belgian Congo under guidance of Prof. Henriet, I am currently preparing my Master dissertation on the construction of customary authority in the Isangi territory (Belgian Congo) during the colonial era, alongside my participation in the data collection process of FORAGENCY. Thanks to our team’s close cooperation and the shared spatial and chronological framework of the project and of my own research, I am able to take part to FORAGENCY while progressing on my Master thesis. After graduation, and at the end of my 18-months Talent for Research internship, I would like to do further research on Colonial Central Africa as a PhD student.
My research interests are the field experience of colonial power and its shortcomings. My primary aim is to study colonial archives along the grain, with an eye for sensitive points revealing colonial administrator’s frustrations, fears, and incompetence. Before being involved in FORAGENCY, I had no experience with more-than-human or environmental approaches of history, but they have proved to be fascinating research frameworks.