Marjolein de Leeuw

In July 2019 I started as a PhD candidate at Eindhoven University of Technology. My research will focus on how sustainability issues in the Netherlands and Kenya have become intertwined through the development of the transcontinental trade in flowers and other perishables. I am particularly interested in what role and place the (perishables)logistics industry has (had) in this process.

I have a Bachelor degree in History from the University of Amsterdam and a Research Master degree African Studies from Leiden University/African Studies Centre Leiden. I wrote my master thesis about how a group of highly skilled Tanzanian airline workers (mainly pilots) have dealt with shifting labour conditions brought on by changing local and international regulatory and institutional contexts. I used the concepts of labor aristocracy and de-professionalization to understand how the nature of their work changed, how this affected their position and how they responded in the face of changing conditions.