Research
I will be a Leverhulme Research Fellow for 2026-27 with a book project entitled "Experimental Empire: Science, Technology, and Belgian Colonialism, 1897–1958", which offers the first study of Belgian colonialism as a techno-scientific enterprise that sought to engineer both empire and nation. Drawing on extensive archival discoveries, it reveals how technologies tested in Congo, from trams to mining, shaped Belgium’s self-image as a modern European power while entrenching racial hierarchies and violence. Spanning Brussels’ two World Fairs (1897–1958), the book traces how visions of progress coexisted with dehumanising spectacle, exposing the fragility of imperial modernity. By linking histories of science, technology, environment and culture, it redefines understanding Belgium’s colonial experience.
I am and have recently run the following two research projects:
- 'Re-valuing Local Knowledges: Understanding Voice, Land and Power for Climate Action in Eastern DRC' (funded by a British Academy ODA Challenge-Oriented Research Grant, 2024-26) with my Co-Investigators Prof. Emery Mudinga (Institut Supérieur de Développment Rural, Bukavu, DRC), Dr Bonaventure Munganga (formerly University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia, now University of Liverpool), Dr Blake Ewing (University of Nottingham, UK) and Dr Nicola Thomas (Lancaster University, UK).
- 'Mapping Internationalist Forms of Antifascist Solidarity: The League of Nation's Archive of Antifascist Communication in response to the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939' (which was funded by the University of Liverpool's Early Career and Returners Fund, 2024-25) with my Liverpool colleagues Dr Nicola Mathieson (International Relations) and Dr Emily Kearon-Warrilow (History) and a group of fantastic student research assistants. For this project, we have been awarded a HSS Faculty Learning & Teaching and Student Experience Award 2025-26. The first output of this project will be a co-authored chapter entitled 'Youth movements against fascist intervention in the Spanish Civil War: Letters from the League of Nations Archive' that will be published in Children, Youth and the Making of International Society in the Twentieth Century, edited by Jonathan Josefsson, Bjoern Lundberg and Joel Low (forthcoming 2027).
Research grants
Experimental Empire: Science, Technology, and Belgian Colonialism, 1897- 1958 (EE)
LEVERHULME TRUST (UK)
September 2026 - August 2027
Re-valuing Local Knowledges: Understanding Voice and Land Rights for Climate Action in Eastern DRC
BRITISH ACADEMY (UK)
June 2024 - December 2026
Constructing a Geopolitics of Nationhood: Belgium's Scientific and Cultural Colonial Project (1830-1958)
BRITISH ACADEMY (UK)
August 2021 - February 2023