PhD
Students
GAIC is, first and foremost, a PhD network, providing training, experience and networking opportunities for PhD students. As all PhD students connected to GAIC will echo, doing your PhD at GAIC is an extremely rewarding experience. On this page, you will find information about the current PhD students, the title of their projects, and a thesis statement outlining their research problem and methdology. Exploring this page will illustrate how diverse GAIC is exactly, being united primarily by the notion of resilience, agency and a desire to contribute to the solution of global issues.
ICTs and Digital Technologies in Human Trafficking for Ransom
Kai Smits
Tilburg University
The link between digital technology and the emergence of new forms of human trafficking has not yet been explained in the literature. I will look at how digital communications technology is used in human trafficking of Eritrean refugees from an ethnographic perspective, based on in-depth interviews with the refugees, and I will look at how inequality in control over technology impacts the exposure of refugees to being subjected to human trafficking. |
Ria Landa
Tilburg University
The SOCAV method is based on person-oriented care for people with dementia so that they get a better quality of life and maintain their independence, a behavioral change will have to occur among healthcare workers in order for the social innovation (SOCAV method) to be successful, and at the same time it should be an impetus for a culture change within the healthcare organization. This will be investigated using a real-life ethnographic mixed method study in which the environment and the people working in, are compared with the reality and supported by different theories.
The Power of SOCAV to Affect Culture Change in Organisations
Decision-Making in Policy to Improve Livelihood Opportunities for Refugees
Kristína Melicherová
Tilburg University
Protection of refugees has been a concern of various policy instruments at different levels of governance in Ethiopia, however, implementation of refugee protection policies have been facing critical failure on the ground when it comes to Eritrean refugees residing in Ethiopia. There seems to be a disparity between what policy makers intend and what is implemented at the grass root level. This ethnographic interpretetive research explores how different sets of values are affecting social processes which leads to agenda setting and the implementation of refugee protection policies at different levels of governance.
Samson Yohannes
Leiden University Medical Center/Mekelle University
Even though clinical health data has great potential to improve health outcomes, it is hardly available for analytics within health facilities, ministries of health and scientists in Africa. There is a need for data to be Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable(FAIR) in machine readable format to do analytics. The FAIR guiding principles make room for distributed analytics in a federated manner, adapted to places, this can support continuum of care through semantically interoperable tooling that can be adapted and contextualized to African situations. In development of the tooling and contextualization and analytics of data, the study will follow a design science research approach.
Federated Machine Learning in Health Data
Access and Control of FAIR-based Health System Deployment
Putu Hadi Purnama Jati
Leiden University Medical Center
The research of FAIR in Africa’s health data by VODAN-Africa focuses on the architecture development and community involvement to achieve data ownership and data interoperability. However, there is unknown information established on the perceived needs and requirements for the permissions regarding access and control of potential users regarding the data accessibility will be adapted into the system.This research investigates the basis of access and control of FAIR-based health system deployment in the VODAN project from the perspective of the Kingdon’s three streams : problem streams that related to the problems, issues or challenges of data management in health facility ; policy streams that addresses the policy options for the health data that researchers, stakeholders and executive bodies propose to solve the problem; and political stream that explore the political will, key person’s contribution and legislation to support the health data management.
Aliya Aktau
Leiden University
There is a cultural and technological gap in African countries in terms of localized storage of patient data and data analytics at places of care. This study investigates the design of localized data storage through the development of FAIR-based architecture and capacity building in Africa.
Data Stewardship
TRUST Effects on PTSD and Domestic Violence in Highly Traumatized Communities
Jimmy Ben Forry
Leiden University/Kampala International University
When utilized within communities of refugees and returnees with high levels of trauma, the TRUST tool, a free brief easy-to-use psychotherapeutic intervention designed to address post-traumatic stress in highly traumatized communities, significantly increases the perceived levels of social economic resilience with further observed indications of reducing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Domestic Violence. Thus, this research intends to study the effects of the TRUST tool on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and Domestic Violence among refugees and returnees with high levels of trauma using repeated experimental pre and post-intervention measurements in a natural setting conducted within a community as well as a clinical setting in northern Uganda. |
Costain Tandi
Tilburg University/Great Zimbabwe University
While language marginalisation has become a problem inherent in many countries around the world in general and Zimbabwe in particular, little or no systematic studies have been carried out to understand the perceptions and views of the affected communities on whether or not the interventions being carried out to rescue the languages from extinction are successful or not. My research is an ethnographic study of the perceptions of the Tjwa people of northwestern Zimbabwe on whether or not the interventions to support the revitalisation and resuscitation of the Tjwao language by linguists, government and community working together are successful. |
Social Processes of Language and Marginalisation
Resilience through TRUST in Ongoing Conflict
Kokob Gebru
Leiden University Medical Center
Trauma during conflict is prevalent among different groups in the community. There are many stressors including experiencing and witnessing different forms of violence, displacement, lack of access to basic needs and services.These all affect the psychological and social economic well being of individuals. There is a gap in that there aren’t many studies that highlight these mental health consequences during an ongoing conflict. This research looks at the trauma experienced by people under an ongoing conflict and the effect of using low-cost, easily accessible, locally adapted, (i.e., TRUST) trauma therapy on psychological and social economic resilience. The case study is implemented in of Tigray, Ethiopia.
Femke Stoutjesdijk
Tilburg University
The mismatch between policy and implementation of person-centered care raises the question of how healthcare organizations can properly prepare and deploy to achieve an (effective) positive outcome when they want to introduce and implement a new person-centered way of working in the organization. The person-centered care approach has consequences for the internal work processes within a health organization. The client is no longer dependent on the person providing care, but now has a say/voice. This change entails that the focus on person-oriented care of clients, employees and informal caregivers and the care institution as a whole requires a changing and redeterminable attitude with regard to receiving and providing care.
Changes in Self-Management in Elderly Care
The Ownership, Application and Dynamism of Customary Law
Muluberhan Berhe Hagos
Tilburg University
The study examines the controversies over ownership, application and dynamism of customary laws in the case studies and resultant effects in the legal evolutions to develop or stagnate the customary legal system.
Piet Gotlieb
Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement / University of Humanistic Studies
My PhD explores the tension between punitive and restorative stances towards perpetrators and victims of violent crime. While it stands to reason that calls for harsher punishment would be associated with greater empathy for the victim: the worse one feels for the victim, the greater the perceived injustice, the harsher the punishment. However, we observe the opposite. Individuals who hold harsher punitive stances actually have less empathy for victims. How do we explain this? And what are implications for the support for policies that benefit victims?
Punitive and Restorative Responses to Violence
