Since 2005, I have worked as a senior researcher for DIGNITY-Danish Institute Against Torture, formerly known as the Rehabilitation and Research Center for Torture Victims. Since 2015, I have joined Aalborg University as professor in Global Refugee Studies.

Academically, I have eorked with both state and non-state perpetrators (police, gangs, vigilantism, political entrepreneurs, clientilist networks and brotherhoods). I have published on policing, gangs, human rights and victimhood. Parallel to my scholarly work, my employment at DIGNITY has afforded me the possibility to work extensively with local human rights organization in South Africa, Guatemala, Kenya, Philippines and Liberia. Presently I work on several inter-connected projects all focussing on (state) violence in poor, urban neighbourhoods. They focus on 1) everyday forms of order maintaining violence in Manila, Johannesburg and Monrovia (intervention project, 2) human rights documentation practices and state violence in Nairobi, Dhaka and Kathmandu (a research project giving rise to this conversation) and 3) the relationship between corruption and torture in South Africa, Bangladesh, Philippines, Congo, Kenya, Liberia and Sri Lanka (research project). 

In relation to this conversation, I am passionate about getting human rights organizations to work more concerted with urban everyday violence...