Ellen Blommaert

Ellen Blommaert (1976 - Belgium) obtained her Bachelor´s degree with distinction in Social Work at the Sociale Hogeschool in Gent, Belgium in 1996. Her thesis was titled “The situation of female refugees in Belgium”. After graduating, she worked as a social worker with refugees and impoverished Belgians in the Protestants Sociaal Centrum in Antwerp. Subsequently, she worked as a volunteer in a human rights organization, called Andean Information Network in Cochabamba, Bolivia, where her work dealt with the difficult situation of the coca-farmers in the Tropics of Cochabamba. Back in Europe in September 1999, she immediately started the Cultural Anthropology Programme at the University of Utrecht, the Netherlands and obtained her Master’s degree in 2003 with distinction. Her thesis, “Violence and Insecurity in Matanzas: the influence of the war on drugs on the village in the Tropics of Bolivia”, was based on six months of fieldwork in Bolivia.

Based on her varied experience and qualitative research training, she got employed at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) in Belgium, where she carries out her current PhD project called “Livelihood and Sexual Behaviour among young people in Asembo, rural Kenya”. Her study aims to give insights into HIV/AIDS prevention programs and to contribute to the scholarly knowledge about youth culture in East Africa by means of investigating how young people build up their livelihood in Asembo and how this influences their sexual behaviour in a changing context. She forms part of the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research (ASSR, Amsterdam) and the African Study Centre (ASC, Leiden) in the Netherlands.