Research Focus Areas

• Visual and multimodal anthropology: representations, (in)visibilities, ethnographic media practices
• Mobility studies: urban mobility, rural-urban linkages, transnational migration, displacement
• Urban studies: development, urbanization, segregation, neighborhoods, place-making

Short Biography

Sanderien Verstappen is assistant professor with tenure track in social and cultural anthropology with a focus on visual anthropology at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology of the University of Vienna. Her long-term research interests include mobility studies, urban studies, social inequality, and the politics of belonging. As a visual anthropologist trained in ethnographic filmmaking, she uses film as a research method and as a means of communicating with varied audiences, including the research participants themselves. At the University of Vienna she directs the Vienna Visual Anthropology Lab, which supports multimodal approaches in research and teaching.

An overview of her publications and films is on her website.

Team

Selected recent publications

• Sanderien Verstappen. 2024. “‘Today, we teach the kids where we are from’: Event filmmaking and diasporic homemaking among Indian Muslims in North America.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, forthcoming in volume 13.
• Sanderien Verstappen. 2023. “Worlding cycling research with anthropology: an anthropological research agenda for urban cycling.” Urban, Planning and Transport Research. https://doi.org/10.1080/21650020.2023.2264360
• Willy Sier & Sanderien Verstappen. 2023. “Empty homes: Filming homeownership in rapidly urbanising China.” Visual Studies (38). https://doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2023.2217796
• Sanderien Verstappen. 2022. New Lives in Anand: Building a Muslim Hub in Western India. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Link to the open access digital edition: https://uw.manifoldapp.org/projects/new-lives-in-anand.
• Sanderien Verstappen. 2020. “Ultrashort, low-resolution and anonymous: Designing anthropological films for smartphone viewers.” entanglements 3, 1: 62-80. Permalink: https://entanglementsjournal.wordpress.com/ultrashort-low-resolution-and-anonymous-designing-anthropological-films-for-smartphone-viewers-2/?fbclid=IwAR2i9oSrep4FgNctOmY-tOV2CSwNYpy7olUHYeO7cr4D-wa7xQ2J2Qde6iw
• Sanderien Verstappen, in conversation with Mario Rutten and Isabelle Makay. 2021. “Ethnocinematographic theory: How to develop migration theory through ethnographic filmmaking.” In Karolina Nikielska-Sekula and Amandine Desille, eds., Visual Methods in Migration Studies: New Possibilities, Theoretical Implications, and Ethical Questions, 99-116. New York: Springer. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67608-7_6