I first visited Cambodia in 2005 and spent half a year in a small rural village in Takeo province to conduct a survey for an international development organization. I have been fascinated by the country, its people and the Khmer language ever since. To develop my language skills, I relied on the help of my generous Cambodian colleagues and friends in Phnom Penh, Takeo, and Berlin.  

My early research was dedicated to a critical assessment of the increasing securitization of EU migration and refugee politics. I was one of the lead authors of two large-scale research projects on migrant labour exploitation in Germany, commissioned by the German government. I continued to visit Cambodia, worked as an Election Observer during the 2008 parliamentarian election, interned in the National Assembly of Cambodia, and contributed to the design and implementation of projects in the civil society sector.

In 2010 I successfully applied to lead the Cambodian case study in the DFG-funded project ‘The Institutionalization of Interpretative Authority in Post-Conflict Societies. An Analysis of the Transitional Authority in Kosovo and Cambodia’ at the Centre for Conflict Studies of the Philipps University in Marburg.  

From 2010 until 2016, I conducted interviews with human rights defenders in Cambodia and followed the trail of documents left by the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC, 1992-99) around the world. I conducted research in archives in Cambodia, France, and the United States.

From 2016 to 2018, I was a Tobis Fellow at the University of California Irvine (UCI).

In 2018, I took up my current position at ANU’s Department of Political and Social Change in the College of Asia and the Pacific. Building on my archival research and drawing on in-depth interviews with Cambodian politicians and human rights activists, my research explores the discursive and affective dimensions of political change in intervention contexts.

In 2019, I became a member of the editorial team of the Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding. As the Co-Editor in Chief, I support critical conversations about justice and peace during socio-political transitions.

Please see my ANU Research Profile for more details on my research agenda and publications.