Laurens Nijzink

In October 2004 Laurens Nijzink came to the ASC. He moved from the CIDIN, Radboud University, bringing with him his NWO funded PhD - project provisionally entitled 'Through the eye of time: Otommari society in temporal perspective, timescapes and action', supervised by Prof. Leo de Haan. The research started in 2000, with periods of fieldwork in 2001 and 2002 in the northern part of Benin (Atacora) and will enter its last year in 2005. The research departed from micro-economic theory of investment with its implicated future and time perspective and took in the course of the research an anthropological turn in order to deepen the insight in how people construct their time and future perspective and how this relates to their daily activities.

Since Laurens Nijzink takes part in the theme group Agency in Africa, the relation between time and agency will be one of the key elements in his research.