Country of residence

Belgium

Brief introduction

Professor, University of Leuven

Education

PhD, Political Science, 2002, University of Leuven

Academic profile

Peter Vermeersch is a professor at the Social Science Faculty of the University of Leuven in Belgium (KU Leuven) and a former Senior Research Fellow of the Belgian National Fund for Scientific Research (FWO). In 2007 and 2008, he was a visiting scholar at the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University. He is a graduate of the University of Leuven, but he also studied, lived and conducted research in Kraków, Warsaw, Prague, Budapest and Venice. He is the author of the book The Romani Movement: Minority Politics and Ethnic Mobilization in Contemporary Central Europe (Berghahn Books, 2006) and of a recent book in Dutch on ethnic conflict and international intervention (Het Vredesfront, Acco Publishers, 2011). His other research focuses on ethnic mobilization, minority politics, multicultural citizenship, resurgent nationalism and party politics in Central Europe and in the Balkans. Articles by Peter Vermeersch have appeared in academic journals such as The European Journal of Sociology, Europe-Asia Studies, Ethnic and Racial Studies, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, and East European Politics and Societies. In addition he publishes essays and poetry and is strongly engaged in the vibrant and multilingual cultural scene of Brussels, the city where he lives. He is a board member of PEN and a member of the editorial board of Karakter, a Dutch-language journal that publishes essays about all aspects of science.

Publications

• The Romani Movement: Minority Politics and Ethnic Mobilization in Contemporary Central Europe, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books (hardback: 2006; paperback 2007), 256p.
• “Ethnic minority identity and movement politics: the case of the Roma in the Czech Republic and Slovakia’, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 26(5), 2003, 879-901.
• “Reframing the Roma: EU initiatives and the politics of reinterpretation”, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, forthcoming in 2011.

Keywords

Roma politics, minority representation, nationalism, ethnic conflict prevention

Contact

Peter.Vermeersch@soc.kuleuven.be browse members list