Klaartje Jaspers

Since 2001, Klaartje Jaspers has been working as a freelance investigative journalist and creative writer, covering a wide range of issues, often having some international, social or innovative aspects. Themes include globalisation (mining, multinationals, migration), urban and rural development, sustainable living, gender, and the arts. To facilitate this, she conducts literature- and field research and she analyses data. Doing so, her academic background as an Interdisciplinary Social Scientist focused on Southern Africa serves her well.

From March 2002 to June 2006 she was based in Zambia, from where she reported on central, east and southern Africa, collecting information for a number of features, analysis and news items. She initiated Kambisa!BeHeard, a platform to expose stories from the underrepresented, aiming to connect different audiences. Since then, Kambisa! has produced magazines, films, documentaries, a weekly radio show, theatrical performances, music recordings and a number social exchange programmes in and between the Netherlands and Zambia.

These days, she uses this background to do various activities - still writing and editing, but also producing debates, science festivals, and developing social-ecological projects in the field of food forestry and urban farming. One day, she hopes to pick up where she left her initial Master research in the Namibian Kavango, doing a PhD on the contribution of new ways of urban farming in the fast growing informal settlements of southern African cities. Finally, she is the initiator of the Minamba Research Farm.