Maarten Bedert

Maarten Bedert holds a PhD in social anthropology from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg and conducted his research as a member of the research group ‘Integration and Conflict along the Upper Guinea Coast’, part of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (Germany). He previously studied African studies at the Universities of Ghent (MA) and Leiden (MPhil). Maarten has held postdoctoral positions at the Amsterdam Institute of Global Health and Development (AIGHD) and the Amsterdam UMC, Location AMC, working on the role of peer support in contemporary HIV care and on late diagnosis of HIV. His research interests include the experience of social change in relation to the experience of personal or institutional and political crises, questions of normalisation and chronicity, secrecy, migration, and social conflict. As a guest researcher at the ASC Leiden, Maarten will complete a book manuscript, Secret societies on trial: disclosure, media and belonging in contemporary Liberia, which is based on his dissertation research. The book analyses customary trials of members of 'new' secret societies who were considered dangerous because they used secret knowledge to harm and kill others.