Collegiate Affiliation
Professor,
Geography, Environment & Society
Links
My website

I still feel as much a student as a teacher, and that might never change. I studied Media Studies at the Free University of Brussels, Belgium I finished my PhD at the Open University in the U.K. in 2004, but continue finding new avenues for reading and research. My PhD was on a rave tourism scene in a coastal village in South India. This might not sound as a serious 'geographical' topic initially, but geography is very broad and it depends very much on the way you approach phenomena, rather than the phenomena themselves. Thus my PhD enabled me to think very hard about the geography of mobility, globalization, and counterculture. Being half-Belgian and half-Indian probably got me interested in questions of travel and identity from an early age.

In 2007, my first book appeared at the University of Minnesota Press called Psychedelic White: Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race. It suggests a new way of looking at identity as a material process, based on how different people (economically different, physically different) interact with each other and gradually become divided into groups.

At the U of M, I started a new research project on Dutch exploration of the Indian Ocean at the beginning of the modern era, focussing on the Itinerario (1596) of Jan Huyghen van Linschoten. This seems a weird leap from rave tourism. What is common to both projects is the question of how people get to travel and establish new connections between Europe and India. A large community engagement project I have led is about Prince, the megastar from Minneapolis who died unexpectedly in 2016. The focus is on how to understand Prince's creative output and global stature in terms of place, the culture industry, and religion.

I taught at the Lancaster Environment Center at Lancaster University, UK, over 2012-13, and then returned to Minnesota.

I continue doing theoretical research on vastly different topics, like global history, ethics, psychoanalysis, the Anthropocene, and evolutionary theory. Ultimately, what drives me is continental philosophy, especially Gilles Deleuze and Alain Badiou. I like thinking as much as I like dancing. Both teach me what I need to know about the world.

Educational Background & Specialties
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Educational Background

  • Ph.D.: Human Geography, The Open University, 2004
  • Licentiate: Communication Studies, Free University of Brussels, 1997

Specialties

  • Cultural geography
  • Popular music studies
  • Travel and tourism
  • Continental philosophy
  • Interdisciplinarity