Research Staff
Ricardo A. Ayala
Chloë Delcour (junior researcher, teaching assistant, PS04)
Her doctoral research is situated within the interdisciplinary domains of political sociology and sociology of human rights. She tries to grasp the construction of human rights for Roma and Gypsy travellers, a group for which these rights are still highly contested, by analysing the discursive debate taking place in newspaper reporting between different actors on different levels in specific human rights case studies.
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Ann-Sophie Desmarets
Ann-Sophie started working as a Phd student at the University of Ghent in 2017. She has a deep interest in the fields of sociology of health, sociology of inequality, and political sociology. Her current research is situated in the field of Blood Economy and aims to develop a systematic and comprehensive understanding of the organizational and institutional determinants of blood donation in Europe in a comparative and cross-temporal perspective.
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Els De Waele (junior researcher, PS04)
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Davide Dusi
His curriculum encompasses Labour, Organization, and Information Systems, with a great emphasis on the relationship between Science, Technology and Society. Presently, his research concerns productive paradigms in digital environments and related phenomena such as prosumer movement and user participation through social media. He is also interested in participatory design of ICT and in societal innovation driven by digital innovation.
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Sam Gorleer
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Lesley Hustinx (lecturer, PS04)
Lesley Hustinx is a board member of the International Society for Third Sector Research (ISTR) and the Flemish Sociological Association (VVS). She is an active member of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA), the European Research Network on Philanthropy (ERNOP), and the European Civil Society Dissertation Network.
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Efstathios Kessareas
He obtained a MA in Religious and Development Studies at the University of Leeds (UK), a BA degree in Sociology at the Panteion University of Political and Social Sciences (Greece) and a BA degree in Greek Philology at the University of Crete.
He worked as a teacher of sociology at a Public Institute of Vocational Training in Greece and during his military service as a researcher at the Army History Directorate of the Hellenic Army.
In collaboration with Raf Vanderstraeten, his current postdoctoral research focuses on the attitude of ecclesiastical and secular intellectuals toward the current financial crisis in Greece. His main objective is not to offer a simple typology of the different ideological responses toward the crisis, but more importantly to examine the ‘rhythm’ of the changes between the realm of ideas and the socioeconomic reality in the current context of the financial crisis.
His general research interests are in the field of sociology of religion, sociology of knowledge, social and conceptual transformation.
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Tomás Koch
More specifically, he intends to look at both internal changes in the university (e.g. balance between research and teaching) and the relationship between the university and its social environment. His research interests include sociology of education, sociology of knowledge and sociology of development.
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Kaat Louckx
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Memory Mphaphuli
She is pursuing her PhD in the Department of Sociology here at Ghent University. Her doctoral research seeks to take the examination of normative heterosexuality further by investigating its construction within the family institution.
Her research interests include gender, sexuality, race politics and feminist theories.
Duyen Phuong
Her current research is intended to aim at teachers’ treatment of gendered school textbooks, teachers’ gendered stance and their classroom practices as well as the effects of teachers’ talk about gender representation in the textbooks on learners’ gendered identity formation in Vietnam.
Her main research interests include discourse analysis, gender and identity formation.
Allan Souza Queiroz
His research focuses on changes in the employment and working conditions of sugar cane cutters in Northeastern Brazil. More specifically, he aims to understand the relation between precarious forms of work and employment and the workers' mobility in the sugar agroindustry.
His research interests lies in sociology of work, employment relations, processes of precarization and oral history.
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Irakli Tsobekhia
Irakli Tsobekhia obtained his Master’s Degree in Conflictology at Tbilisi State University, Georgia. Now he is a doctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology at Ghent University.
His doctoral Research focuses on the distinct group identity of Muslim Meskhetians, who were forcefully deported from Soviet Georgia during Stalinist Period. The main goal of the research is to analyse the major obstacles for the successful integration of repatriated Meskhetians into Georgian society and to uncover the fundamentals of their group identity.
Essential questions of the research are: How do the Meskhetians view themselves?, How did their exile during Stalin’s rule impact their group identity?, To what extent are Meskhetians currently integrated into Georgian society?, Are their group identity and religion the main obstacles to the process of their integration into Georgian society? The Meskhetian case is analyzed in the broader theoretical context of nationalism, nation-formation and globalization."
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Dirk Van Glabeke
Dirk Van Glabeke is currently preparing his PhD dissertation at the Center for Social Theory.
The dissertation will be on the subject of the sociology of emotions, with as specific topic: rational decision making and the moral emotions, shame, guilt and pride.
Besides these subjects his main interests lie in the fields of social and moral norms, self, honor/respect, actor theories, social movements, the micro-macro link and historical sociology.
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Raf Vanderstraeten (professor, PS04)
Raf Vanderstraeten is University Professor and Professor of Sociology. His work is in the
field of socio
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Rachel Waerniers
At present she is a teaching assistant at the Sociology department of this university and a doctoral researcher attached to the Centre for Social Theory.
Her research interests are situated within the domain of political sociology, more specifically she deals with questions of social capital and ethnic minorities. At the moment she’s focusing on the attachment of ethnic minorities to their neighbourhood and the development of a local identity.