- Muriel Akkerman and Eline Sap joined our team - September 5, 2024
- Idir: Algeria - April 25, 2024
- The Federal Office for Migration and Refugees (BAMF) continues to support our training courses on discrimination and racism. - April 24, 2024
Muriel Akkerman and Eline Sap joined our team. The stay of Muriel has been made possible by the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (IfA). Muriel will stay for three months, Eline (University of Groningen) five months. Both will participate in our research on populism and radicalization. Below some more information.
Muriel Akkerman holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration and Government from the Fundação Getúlio Vargas São Paulo School of Business Administration (FGV EAESP), specializing in policy implementation, social policies, and organizational studies. She is an accredited lawyer in Brazil with over three years of experience managing projects for nonprofit organizations (NGOs), particularly focused on designing and implementing initiatives that promote access to justice for socially vulnerable populations. Recently, she was awarded a fellowship from the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa) to join the Social Science Works (SSW).
Muriel is interested in mixed-methods approaches, empirical puzzles, and frameworks for policy analysis. She is particularly focused on fostering advocacy efforts to drive social change through effective collaboration between civil society organizations and government bodies. Over the years, she has developed skills in social research methods to address social inequalities, strengthen democracy, and tackle climate change across diverse contexts. Her recent research includes topics such as public security—specifically the prison system—street-level bureaucracy, the reproduction of inequalities, and bureaucratic representation.
Eline Sap is a Masterstudent from the Netherlands, working at Social Science Works as an intern. She completed a bachelor’s degree in Pedagogical Sciences at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, after which she switched to the Faculty of Religion, Culture and Society. Though these studies may not usually be connected to one another, both fields are concerned with people, worldviews and societal dynamics. Eline’s interest in exactly these topics has caused her to enroll in the masters programme Religion, Conflict and Globalisation in Groningen. The masters’ focus on politics unlocked a new interest, which she further developed during her master thesis, titled Islam as “violent ideology” and immigration policies as “leftist hobbies”: nativist trends in the election manifestos of the Dutch Freedom Party. During this 5 month internship, Eline hopes to learn more about the German political situation and its impact on people’s day to day lives. In her free time, she likes to travel and discover the world.