dr.ir. M (Martijn) Koster

I am an associate professor at the Sociology of Development and Change Group at WUR. My research is positioned at the intersection of political anthropology and critical development studies. My core themes are 1) the in/formal relationships between marginalised residents and the state, and 2) urban development interventions. My geographic focus is on Latin America (Brazil, Colombia and recently Cuba) and Europe (UK and the Netherlands).

From January 2024 I will be the Principal Investigator (PI) of the ethnographic research project Politics of the Periphery in Urban Latin America - Reconceptualising Politics from the Margins (POPULAR), funded through an ERC Consolidator Grant. From 2016-2022 I was the PI of the research project BROKERS, financed through an ERC Starting Grant.

I am co-founder and co-convener of the Anthropologies of the State Research Network of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). I have published numerous academic and non-academic book chapters and (open access) articles and guest-edited several special issues in peer-reviewed journals. I am regularly invited to present my work at universities in the Netherlands and abroad.

In my teaching, I zoom in on (urban) development, governance, citizenship and (informal) politics, in which I always include current affairs in society and recent debates in our field. I also supervise BA and MA theses on these and other topics.