For best experience please turn on javascript and use a modern browser!
You are using a browser that is no longer supported by Microsoft. Please upgrade your browser. The site may not present itself correctly if you continue browsing.

Dr. J.H.J. (Julienne) Weegels

Faculty of Humanities
CEDLA
Photographer: Julienne Weegels

Visiting address
  • Roetersstraat 33
  • Room number: 5.15
Postal address
  • Postbus 94554
    1090 GN Amsterdam
  • Profile & Research Interests

    Julienne Weegels (Haarlem, 1987) is assistant professor of Latin American Studies at CEDLA as of August 2020. She is an ethnographer with a BA in Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology from the University of Amsterdam (2008), and an MA in Latin American Studies from the CEDLA (2009, cum laude). She obtained her PhD in Social Sciences from the University of Amsterdam AISSR (2018, cum laude) and was a postdoctoral researcher at CEDLA between 2018-2020, during which she was also a visiting fellow to the University of Cambridge Institute of Criminology’s Prisons Research Centre (PRC, 2019). She is the co-organizer of the Global Prisons Research Network, founding member of the Red de Investigación Penitenciaria de las Américas (APRN-RISPA), and former co-convener of the Anthropology of Confinement Network (2018-2020 & 2020-2022). Between 2009 and 2016 she conducted 31 months of field research in Nicaragua with prisoners and former prisoners of three prison facilities. She has published in a number of high-ranking peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Latin American Studies and the International Criminal Justice Review. 

    Research interests & projects

    Julienne is much interested in the politics of (dis)order and the entanglement of violence with governance and contestation. Her PhD research focused on Nicaraguan (former) prisoners’ experiences of imprisonment and the state and on their ‘performing’ of violence, governance, masculinities, and change. Simultaneously, however, it also sought to shed light on the development of Nicaragua’s hybrid carceral state and the intimate relation it projects between extralegality and the exercise of (state) power. This research culminated in the manuscript ‘Performing Prison: Power, Agency, and Co-Governance in Nicaraguan Prisons’ (cum laude).

    Following the 2018 anti-government protests in Nicaragua, Julienne has been conducting research on practices of (state) violence, carceral resistance and authoritarianism. This research project takes the key findings and material from her prisons research as its point of departure, combining it with new research on the changing practices and understandings of policing and incarceration in Nicaragua today. In 2023, Julienne conducted exploratory research in El Salvador and Honduras, working on the development of a larger, comparative project on carceral expansion and contestations in the region. Throughout, she has been involved in the organization and editing of special collections on confinement beyond the prison proper, and the edited volume 'Carceral Worlds: Legacies, Textures, Futures' (Bloomsbury, 2024). 

    Over the past years, Julienne managed to secure grants for various collaborative research projects around her topics of interest, including:

    In 2022-23, funding from the Amsterdam Knowledge Centre on Inequality as PI on a participatory action research driven research project on the interplay of urban inequalities and criminal justice interventions in the city of Amsterdam, titled "Het Ongelijkheidsbeginsel: Tussen Stadsdeel en Strafrecht" (The Principle of Inequality: Between Criminal Justice and City District). This project was realized in collaboration with Restorative Justice Netherlands and dr. Thijs Jeursen (Utrecht University), and kickstarted the Alliance for Systemic Change. The final report can be found here. Additional funding was secured from the UvA Centre for Urban Studies for the realization of the international colloquium "Prisons & Urban Inequalities" on 13 October 2023.

    In 2021, with a Global Digital Cultures (GDC) seed grant award, as PI on the trans-Pacific research project "P(R)OTESTAS: The Politics and Aesthetics of Digital Authoritarianism and Protest in the Global South" in collaboration with anthropologist Yatun Sastramidjaja and film studies PhD student Luisa Gonzalez Valencia. Updates on this research project can be found here.

    In 2019-20, Julienne also co-organised the ILLICITIES City-Making and Organised Crime project, set up by Frank Müller at the Centre for Urban Studies. We hosted an "Emergent Conversation" blog on the Political and Legal Anthropology Review website in 2021, and published a special issue with the Journal for Illicit Economies and Development in 2022.  

    At present (2024) Julienne also collaborates with dr. Laurens Bakker (Anthropology) and dr. Pepijn Neerijnen (Business Studies) as a supervisor on the Undocumented Migrant Entrepreneurs project, funded with an UvA Fair & Resilient Societies seed grant.

    Supervision

    Julienne is open to (co-)supervise MA/MSc and PhD projects in the areas of social/political anthropology, critical criminology and/or gender studies on themes related to imprisonment; policing/crime control/criminalization; governance; corruption; violence; authoritarianism; migration; and/or (intersectional approaches to) gender/sexuality, preferably from an ethnographic perspective (can also be digital) and/or with a regional focus on Latin America or Central America. Feel free to reach out for a talk!

    My current PhD students are Mario Araya Pérez, Luisa González Valencia, Geraldine Lamadrid Guerrero, Antonia McGrath, and Evi Kostner. 

     

  • Publications

    2024

    • Stuit, H. H., Turner, J., & Weegels, J. H. J. (2024). Introduction: Carceral Worlds Now. In Carceral Worlds: Legacies, Textures and Futures (pp. 1-17). Bloomsbury Academic.
    • Stuit, H., Turner, J., & Weegels, J. (Eds.) (2024). Carceral Worlds: Legacies, Textures and Futures. Bloomsbury Academic. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781350298095 [details]

    2023

    • Parker, C. M., & Weegels, J. (2023). Carceral citizenship in Latin American and the Caribbean: Exclusion and belonging in the new mass carceral zone. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 116, 69-85. https://doi.org/10.32992/erlacs.11034 [details]
    • Rocha, J. L., Rodgers, D., & Weegels, J. (2023). Debunking the Myth of Nicaraguan Exceptionalism: Crime, Drugs and the Political Economy of Violence in a ‘Narco-state’. Journal of Latin American Studies, 55(3), 519-543. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022216X23000676 [details]
    • Weegels, J. (2023). Carceral citizenship in post-protest Nicaragua: Political imprisonment and civil death. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, 116, 163-183. https://doi.org/10.32992/erlacs.10989 [details]
    • Weegels, J. H. J. (Guest ed.), Parker, C. (Guest ed.), Daudelin, J., Ratton, J. L., Gual, R., & Fontes, A. W. (2023). Carceral Citizenship in Latin America and the Caribbean. European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies.

    2022

    2021

    • Weegels, J. (2021). Beyond the Cemetery of the Living: An Exploration of Disposal and the Politics of Visibility in the Nicaraguan Prison System. In S. Darke, C. Garces, L. Duno-Gottberg, & A. Antillano (Eds.), Carceral Communities in Latin America: Troubling Prison Worlds in the 21st Century (pp. 295-319). (Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology). Palgrave Macmillan. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-61499-7_14 [details]
    • Weegels, J. (2021). Sensing Secrecy: Power, Violence and Its Concealment in Nicaraguan Prisons. In K. Herrity, B. E. Schmidt, & J. Warr (Eds.), Sensory Penalities: Exploring the Senses in Spaces of Punishment and Social Control (pp. 89-105). (Emerald Studies in Culture, Criminal Justice and the Arts). Emerald Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83909-726-320210007 [details]

    2020

    2019

    2018

    2014

    2022

    • Weegels, J. (2022). [Review of: G. Bugnon (2021) Governing delinquency through freedom : Control, rehabilitation and desistance]. International Criminal Justice Review, 32(1), 118-120. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10575677211029371 [details]

    2021

    2019

    • Weegels, J. (2019). El sistema, la policía y la política vistos desde adentro. Un acercamiento al Estado carcelario nicaragüense de cara a la represión. Estudios Centroamericanos, 74(756), 147-172. [details]

    2018

    2023

    • Weegels, J. H. J., Souverein, F. A., & Jeursen, T. J. (2023). Het Ongelijkheidsbeginsel: Tussen Strafrecht en Stadsdeel in Amsterdam: Onderzoeksrapport.

    2020

    • Weegels, J. H. J., Antillano, A., Azaola, E., Barbosa Lima Siquiera, I., Bessone, N., Biondi, K., Bracco, L., Carranza, A. S., Copa Uyuni, J., del Castillo, F., Diaz, S., Diaz Vidal, M. F., Duran, D., Espinoza, O., Godoi, R., Gual, R., Hernandez Jimenez, N., Hildenbrand, A., Iturralde, M., ... Vigna, A. (2020). Los efectos del coronavirus en las carceles de Latinoamerica.

    Media appearance

    Journal editor

    Talk / presentation

    • Weegels, J. (speaker) (19-11-2020). Resocializacion o derechos? Trabajo, estudio y mantenimiento de vinculos familiares en prision, VIII Congreso de Derecho de Ejecucion Penal, Buenos Aires.
    • Weegels, J. (speaker) (24-10-2019). Negotiating Power: Prisoners and the State in Nicaragua, University of Cambridge. http://www.latin-american.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/michaelmas_2019.pdf
    • Weegels, J. (speaker) (24-10-2019). Prison Riots and Co-Governance in Nicaragua, Westminster University.
    • Weegels, J. (speaker) (10-10-2019). Extralegal Entanglements: Exploring Nicaragua’s Hybrid Carceral State, University of Cambridge.
    • Weegels, J. (speaker) (16-5-2019). Ethics and Research Practicalities in Restricted Environments, IDS Ethics in Practice Seminar.
    • Weegels, J. (speaker) (9-5-2019). From Excluding the Delinquent to Quelling Dissent: Policing, Confinement, and Creeping Authoritarianism in Nicaragua, LASP PhD Core Course.
    • Weegels, J. (speaker) (25-4-2019). Excluding the Noncitizen: Policing, Confinement, and Authoritarianism in Nicaragua.
    • Weegels, J. (speaker) (14-3-2019). The Authoritarian Turn from up Close: Nicaragua and Latin America’s Changing Political Landscape, CLIO Forum Talks, Groningen.
    • Weegels, J. (speaker) (5-3-2019). A new insurrection? Understanding Nicaragua's mass protests, UGlobe Café on Latin American Politics 'From Bolívar to Bolsonaro'. https://www.tivolivredenburg.nl/agenda/van-bolivar-naar-bolsonaro-05-03-2019/
    • Weegels, J. (speaker) (1-11-2018). The Netherlands and Central America - roundtable speaker, The Big Central America Debate, Amsterdam. https://hetnieuwe.viceversaonline.nl/events/het-grote-midden-amerika-debat/?fbclid=IwAR2dipDtrEffQ1BFK3Z6znzh0oFj2O_5tjDybqA6tHFFpW201GOQBp0o6kE
    • Weegels, J. (speaker) & Aguilera, Y. (speaker) (18-6-2018). Introduction: Understanding the Protests in Nicaragua, Dialogues with Civil Society #3: Understanding the Protests in Nicaragua, Amsterdam. https://www.facebook.com/events/1300536096745652/permalink/1301946313271297/

    Others

    • Weegels, J. (participant) (22-7-2020). 16th EASA Biennial Conference. At EASA2020 I organized a roundtable together with Irene Marti (University of Bern) titled: "Confinement amplified: Exploring carceral regimes from (…) (participating in a conference, workshop, ...). https://easaonline.org/conferences/easa2020/panels#8643
    • Stuit, H. (organiser) & Weegels, J. (organiser) (18-6-2020). Carcerality in the Globalised Present, Amsterdam (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Weegels, J. (participant) (16-5-2020). LASA2020 Amefrica Ladina. At this conference I chaired the panel "Latin American Prisons: Social embeddedness and the limits of hybrid governance" and presented the paper (…) (participating in a conference, workshop, ...). https://www.lasaweb.org/uploads/lasa2020-program-final.pdf?10
    • Weegels, J. (organiser) & Sanchez Boe, C. (organiser) (12-12-2019 - 13-12-2019). Economies of Confinement, Paris. Anthropology of Confinement, Biannual Workshop-Meeting (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Ypeij, A. (organiser), Weegels, J. (organiser) & Arends, I. (organiser) (4-10-2019). LASP Conference 2019, Amsterdam. In honor of the launch of the Netherlands Research School Latin America Studies, we organized a conference with the title “Latin America in (…) (organising a conference, workshop, ...). https://www.facebook.com/events/2926765690882885/
    • Weegels, J. (organiser) & Mueller, F. (organiser) (3-10-2019). ILLICITIES Workshop, Amsterdam (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Weegels, J. (visiting researcher) (1-9-2019 - 1-12-2019). University of Cambridge (visiting an external institution).
    • Weegels, J. (organiser), Peirce, J. (organiser), Espinoza, O. (organiser) & Marmolejo, L. (organiser) (28-5-2019). Americas Prisons Research Network - 3rd International Meeting, Washington, D.C. (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Ypeij, A. (organiser), Arends, I. (organiser) & Weegels, J. (organiser) (6-5-2019 - 9-6-2019). LASP PhD Core Course (participating in a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Weegels, J. (organiser) (2-11-2017 - 3-11-2017). Connecting Urban and Prison Ethnographies: Security and Confinement beyond the Limitations of Site, Amsterdam (organising a conference, workshop, ...).
    • Ypeij, A. (organiser) & Weegels, J. H. J. (organiser) (9-7-2014 - 11-7-2014). Lova’s third international conference ‘Ethnographies of Gender and the Body’, Amsterdam. , VU, Amsterdam, July 9-11, as chair of the organizing committee. (organising a conference, workshop, ...).

    2018

    • Weegels, J. H. J. (2018). Performing prison: Power, agency and co-governance in Nicaraguan prisons. [Thesis, fully internal, Universiteit van Amsterdam]. [details]
    This list of publications is extracted from the UvA-Current Research Information System. Questions? Ask the library or the Pure staff of your faculty / institute. Log in to Pure to edit your publications. Log in to Personal Page Publication Selection tool to manage the visibility of your publications on this list.
  • Ancillary activities
    No ancillary activities