Lotje de Vries is associate professor at the Sociology of Development and Change Group of Wageningen University in the Netherlands. Her research focuses on borders, insecurity and relations between citizens and public authority in contexts of crisis. She currently is a senior fellow with MIASA, University of Ghana.

MIASA Project: Appropriating the frontier; securing development

This project takes the idea of the frontier as the starting point to think about issues of development (or the absence thereof) in contexts of insecurity and conflict. Rooted in the field of development sociology, the idea of the frontier helps to formulate counterweights to the current emphasis on security in international development, particularly in West Africa. Turning the relationship between so-called ‘metropoles’ and ‘peripheries’ on its head, I hope to re-center debates on development: away from the security dominance, towards how citizens and institutions in frontier-spaces deal with historical and pressing development - and environmental concerns.