dr. M. van Houte (Marieke) MSc

I am an assistant professor for cultural anthropology and development studies, and a senior researcher on the Horizon Europe project GAPs on return migration for Human Geography.

My research and teaching is about how people live together and find meaning and identity amid structural inequalities, conflicts and changes - including topics of human migration and (im)mobilities, identity, belonging, power and governance, polarization, and conviviality.

Specifically, I have been working extensively on return migration, the link between migration and development (aid) and the ways in which migration and migrants contribute to social and political change in origin countries (or not). I also have an active agenda of searching for innovative methods that contribute to more inclusive, embodied, and just ways of knowledge production, using co-creative, theatrical and participatory methods.

My long-term goal is to contribute to navigating the complexities of social change towards justice and liberation for all, through solid and more just knowledge production, teaching and outreach. With compassion, creativity and connectedness.

Prior to joining Radboud in 2023, I obtained my PhD degree at the Maastricht Graduate School of Governance (2014), and held a Marie Curie Fellowship at the International Migration Institute - University of Oxford, did a gap year as a freelance participatory theatre maker connected to VU University Amsterdam, followed by a research position at the Department of Public Administration and Sociology at Erasmus University in Rotterdam.