Zjos Vlaminck

Zjos Vlaminck holds a master's degree in Political Science from the University of Ghent Belgium and Stellenbosch University in South Africa, with a major in African Studies (2010). She obtained a second master in Development Evaluation and Management from the Institute for Development Policy and Management in Antwerp (2011), where she narrowed her focus on Western Africa through her fieldwork and research in Ghana. After graduating she worked as a junior researcher at the Institute for Work and Society (HIVA), KU Leuven, Belgium (2011) and as a project manager, research assistant and junior researcher at the African Studies Centre in Leiden (2012-2014).

The common thread throughout her research has been unequal power relations and how local agents deal with adverse incorporation.

More recently she has worked around these issues in relation to labour- and workers' organisations- dynamics in West Africa. Since October 2014 she is employed as junior researcher in a NWO-funded project, “Increasing Political Leverage of Informal and Formal Workers’ Organisations for Inclusive Development: The cases of Ghana and Benin”. In this 2,5 year project she will focus on the political leverage of informal workers in Ghana, by studying their bargaining repertoires and the ways in which they are constantly renegotiating their space and rights within and towards the Ghanaian state, market and society.