PROJECT FOLLOW - Key Persons

Job Titles:

• Assistant Professor
• Researcher of FOLLOW

Beste İşleyen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests include critical security studies, borders, migration and conflict. İşleyen is currently working on a project on Turkey's border and migration practices. This project is funded by a VENI Grant (Project Number 451-15-33) by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). İşleyen's most recent journal articles have appeared in European Journal of International Relations, International Political Sociology, Mediterranean Politics and Security Dialogue. Beste İşleyen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics at the University of Amsterdam. Her research interests include critical security studies, borders, migration and conflict. İşleyen is currently working on a project on Turkey's border and migration practices. This project is funded by a VENI Grant (Project Number 451-15-33) by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). İşleyen's most recent journal articles have appeared in European Journal of International Relations, International Political Sociology, Mediterranean Politics and Security Dialogue. As an affiliated researcher of FOLLOW, İşleyen supervises the third PhD project by Tasniem Anwar on courts. İşleyen's VENI research and the FOLLOW project address a number of interlinked issues, in particular terrorism financing cases and border management practices that target particular forms of human mobility (from the European Union to war-torn regions and vice versa). A central question which İşleyen is interested in is the emergence of new security practices in the context of European Union cooperation with neighbouring countries in the management of human mobility defined as "terrorist travel."

Job Titles:

• Researcher
• Researcher at UvA

Bruno Magalhães has worked as a visiting post-doctoral researcher at UvA and studies the making of borders. He now holds an appointment as executive director of PUC's recently established Digital Humanities Lab (#dhLab) - a transdisciplinary research centre where anthropologists, computer scientists, geographers, engineers, sociologists, poets, art historians, architectcs, psychologists, and all sorts of interesting people - including the odd IR scholar - are working together to get ahead of attempts to govern people by governing data. He is curious about how distinctions - normal and abnormal, welcome or unwelcome, dangerous or safe - are practically accomplished, sustained and refused and has been exploring the issue of bordering through studies of practices related to asylum screening. Bruno looked at how it is decided who is an economic migrant and who is a refugee, for instance, and at how an asylum application is labeled manifestly unfounded. Studying these issues has brought him to read stuff on norms, discretion and the role played by biometrics, and other data-gathering tools, in border decision-making. His current obsession is with following people and things as they acquire different values throughout a chain of translation. Take a tool used to fingerprint migrants: It takes a lot of work to make a scanner built in, say, the Netherlands, to function ‘well' in a place as far as, say, Brazil. How is this sort of ‘on-the-spot' valuation achieved? That is the kind of question that has puzzled him lately. And he is trying to bring this kind of question to bear over migration and STS debates.

Job Titles:

• Researcher
• Post
• Researcher at the University of Amsterdam

Carola Westermeier is postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). She holdsdegrees in History, Journalism and Sociology. She has previously worked at the Institute for Sociologyat Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany, and was also a member of the collaborative researchcentre ‘Dynamics of Security' (SFB 138) and the ‘Graduate Center for the Study of Culture' (GCSC). Carola Westermeier is postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). She holds degrees in History, Journalism and Sociology. She has previously worked at the Institute for Sociology at Justus-Liebig-University Giessen, Germany, and was also a member of the collaborative research centre ‘Dynamics of Security' (SFB 138) and the ‘Graduate Center for the Study of Culture' (GCSC). She finished her PhD in Sociology by the University of Marburg in 2018. In her doctoral thesis ‘Political Security and Financial Stability following the Crisis' she examined why there was no fundamental transformation of global financial governance following the financial meltdown of 2008. Her research is based at the intersections of security studies, international political economy and political sociology. She has published on the sociology of central banking and the intersections of economic and security expertise.

Job Titles:

• Principal Investigator of FOLLOW

De Goede is Principal Investigator of FOLLOW: Following the Money from Transaction to Trial. She will contribute broadly to the project, for example to further conceptualise the notion of the chain and its specific material properties and spatial formations. De Goede is also specifically interested in terrorism financing trials and the role of security expertise.

Job Titles:

• Lead - Researcher
• Lead - Researcher WODC Study

Dr. Mara Wesseling is lead-researcher for a research project on Combating Terrorism Financingrequested by the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice and the Ministry of Finance. This studyinvestigates the initiatives that have been taken by the different public actors (law enforcement,intelligence and judicial branch…) and private actors in regulated sectors (banks, financial sector…)to combat terrorism financing in the period of 2013-2016. It also assesses how these activities relateto the FATF recommendations and guidelines. Dr. Mara Wesseling is lead-researcher for a research project on Combating Terrorism Financing requested by the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice and the Ministry of Finance. This study investigates the initiatives that have been taken by the different public actors (law enforcement, intelligence and judicial branch…) and private actors in regulated sectors (banks, financial sector…) to combat terrorism financing in the period of 2013-2016. It also assesses how these activities relate to the FATF recommendations and guidelines. Previously Ms. Wesseling wrote a PhD thesis on the European Fight Against Terrorism Financing (2008-2013) at the University of Amsterdam. Next, she was a post-doc researcher at Sciences PoParis and participated in the HowSAFE (How States Account for Failure in Europe) research project (2013-2016). Since January 2017, she founded WES Consultancy, which provides expertise in managing security challenges, with a focus on threat finance. Given the overlap between the objectives of the policy study and the FOLLOW project, Ms. Wesseling acts as an associated member to the latter. It is expected that some coordination and exchange between both research projects will be mutually beneficial and enhance research outputs.

Esmé Bosma obtained her PhD at the Department of Political Science the University of Amsterdam. She studied the ‘gatekeepers' role of banks and how they aim to counter terrorist financing in practice. Her thesis explores how political and ethical choices materialise at the human-technology interface and analyses the production of customer risk profiles, the design and use of transaction monitoring systems, and the emergence of public-private partnerships to counter terrorist financing. Esmé Bosma obtained her PhD at the Department of Political Science the University of Amsterdam. She holds a bachelor's and master's degree in Political Science in which she specialised in European security politics. Her PhD research is situated at the intersection of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and (critical) security studies. Her focus is on how private actors absorb an increasing amount of security responsibilities and what kind of ethical, technical and practical dilemmas arise in doing so. By doing ethnographic fieldwork in banks and the financial sector she studied how European banks and financial institutions counter terrorist financing in practice. Being gatekeepers of the financial system, banks have the legal obligation to ‘Know Your Customer' before offering their services and to report unusual or suspicious transactions to Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs). She analysed how financial institutions translate these regulatory requirements into practical processes and protocols. Her thesis explores how political and ethical choices materialise at the human-technology interface and analyses the production of customer risk profiles, the design and use of transaction monitoring systems, and the emergence of public-private partnerships to counter terrorist financing.

Pieter Lagerwaard is a PhD Candidate in the FOLLOW project. He aims to understand the European landscape of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) and how they engage in Counter Terrorism Finance (CTF) practices. By focusing on the daily practices of financial intelligence professionals he hopes to unpack and bring to the fore the perspectives of professionals themselves and the daily dilemma's they face on such topics as societal expectations, privacy considerations, technological restrictions, and other practice-related challenges. Pieter Lagerwaard is a PhD Candidate in the FOLLOW project. He aims to understand the European landscape of Financial Intelligence Units (FIUs) and how they engage in Counter Terrorism Finance (CTF) practices. By focusing on the daily practices of financial intelligence professionals he hopes to unpack and bring to the fore the perspectives of professionals themselves and the daily dilemma's they face on such topics as societal expectations, privacy considerations, technological restrictions, and other practice-related challenges. For both his bachelor's in anthropology and research master's in Social Science (cum laude) Lagerwaard has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in India. Whereas the bachelor project focused on the ‘classical' anthropological inquiry into human migration - from rural India to the West (see this publication) - the master project contributed to the growing field of financial anthropology by engaging the financial market of Mumbai, the financial capital of India. Through daily interaction with Mumbai stockbrokers he addressed the way in which local Indian brokers experience and ‘negotiate' global finance (see this publication). Lagerwaard aims to build upon these ethnographic interests within the FOLLOW project by studying the field of financial security.

Job Titles:

• Assistant Professor
• Assistant Professor in International Relations

Polly Pallister-Wilkins is an assistant professor in international relations and conflict resolution and governance. As an affiliated researcher of FOLLOW, Pallister-Wilkins supervises the first PhD project by Esmé Bosma on banks. In her own research she specialises in the intersection of humanitarian intervention and border control, what she calls ‘humanitarian borderwork'. Her research has been published in amongst others: International Political Sociology, Political Geography, Geopolitics, Security Dialogue, Antipode, Third World Quarterly and Global Policy. Polly Pallister-Wilkins is an assistant professor in International Relations and Conflict Resolution and Governance. As an affiliated researcher of FOLLOW, Pallister-Wilkins supervises the first PhD project by Esmé Bosma on banks. In her own research she specialises in the intersection of humanitarian intervention and border control, what she calls ‘humanitarian borderwork'. Her research has been published in amongst others: International Political Sociology, Political Geography, Geopolitics, Security Dialogue, Antipode, Third World Quarterly and Global Policy. As part of her research into humanitarian borderwork Polly Pallister-Wilkins has worked with European border police agencies and Frontex. For the previous few years her research focus has been on non-state actors' humanitarian work in border spaces. She has worked intensively with international humanitarian organisations and grassroots activists in Greece, Italy and elsewhere. Pallister-Wilkins is regularly invited to give talks, presentations and expert advice to other researchers, policy makers and practitioners on issues relating to humanitarianism and border control. Pallister-Wilkins received her PhD from SOAS, University of London where she worked on the socio-politics of the Israeli Separation Barrier in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. She moved to the University of Amsterdam in 2012.

Job Titles:

• Lead - Researcher WODC Study

Job Titles:

• Researcher
• Researcher at the University of Amsterdam

Rocco Bellanova is post-doctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). He holds a double PhD in Political & Social Sciences and in Law, which has been awarded in 2014 by the Université Saint-Louis-Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Between 2013 and 2016 he has worked at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). His research mainly focuses on European data-driven security practices and the role played by data protection in their governance. His work sits at the intersection of politics, law and science & technology studies. Rocco Bellanova is post-doctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam (UvA). He holds a double PhD in Political & Social Sciences and in Law, which has been awarded in 2014 by the Université Saint-Louis-Bruxelles and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Between 2013 and 2016 he has worked at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). His research mainly focuses on European data-driven security practices and the role played by data protection in their governance. His work sits at the intersection of politics, law and science & technology studies. He has notably carried out research on border security and intelligence-led policing practices, focusing on the processing of passenger data and traffic and location data, and on the introduction of body scanners and ‘system-of-systems' security programs [EUROSUR]. He is member of the Executive Committee of the International Studies Association Section Science, Technology and Arts in International Relations [STAIR], as well as of the Scientific Committee of the Computers, Privacy and Data Protection conferences [CPDP]. Since 2012, he has been co-organizing an annual Privacy Camp [PC] in Brussels where researchers and activists meet and discuss digital rights-related issues. His research has contributed to foster the interest of international political sociology towards science and technology studies.

Tasniem Anwar is a PhD student in the FOLLOW project. She has a master's degree in Conflict Resolution and Governance (MSc) and Law and Politics of International Security (LLM). She previously worked as a junior teacher in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. In the FOLLOW project, she will focus her research on the politics of the court room. With her research she hopes to provide a theoretical and empirical contribution, from a critical perspective, to the research on the judicial aspects of CTF regulations. She is particularly interested in the interplay of the legal and the political and how we can understand the court judgements through this relationship. Tasniem Anwar is a PhD student in the FOLLOW project. She has a master's degree in Conflict Resolution and Governance (MSc) and Law and Politics of International Security (LLM). She previously worked as a junior teacher in the Department of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam. In the FOLLOW project, she will focus her research on the politics of the court room. With her research she hopes to provide a theoretical and empirical contribution, from a critical perspective, to the research on the judicial aspects of CTF regulations. She is particularly interested in the interplay of the legal and the political and how we can understand the court judgements through this relationship.