Profile

PhD, University of Cambridge (2000).

Prior to joining the Institute in 2018, Dennis Rodgers held appointments at the Universities of Amsterdam, Glasgow, Manchester, and the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on issues relating to the dynamics of conflict and violence in cities in Latin America (Nicaragua, Argentina) and South Asia (India). Much of his work involves the longitudinal study of youth gangs in Nicaragua but he also works on the political economy of development, the politics of socio-spatial segregation, participatory governance processes, the historiography of urban theory, and the epistemology of development knowledge. In 2018 he was awarded a five-year European Research Council Advanced Grant for a project on “Gangs, Gangsters, and Ganglands: Towards a Comparative Global Ethnography” (GANGS), which aims to systematically compare gang dynamics in Nicaragua, South Africa and France.

Selected publications

• Co-edited with Kees Koonings & Dirk Kruijt, Utrecht University. Ethnography as Risky Business: Field Research in Violent and Sensitive Contexts, Lanham: Lexington Books.
• With Gareth A. Jones, LSE. “Ethnographies and/of violence”, Ethnography 20, no. 3 (2019): 297-319.
• “Urban anti-politics and the enigma of revolt: Confinement, segregation, and (the lack of) political action in contemporary Nicaragua”, Ethnos 84, no. 1 (2019): 56-73.
• “Pour une « ethnographie délinquante » : Vingt ans avec les gangs au Nicaragua”, Cultures et Conflits, 110/111 (2018): 59-76.
• “Drug Booms and Busts: Poverty and Prosperity in a Nicaraguan Narco-Barrio.” Third World Quarterly 39, no. 2 (2018): 261–76.
• “Bróderes in Arms: Gangs and the Socialization of Violence in Nicaragua.” Journal of Peace Research 54, no. 5 (2017): 648–60.
• “Critique of Urban Violence: Bismarckian Transformations in Contemporary Nicaragua.” Theory, Culture, and Society 33, no. 7–8 (2016): 85–109.
• With Gareth A. Jones, LSE. “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants? Anthropology and the City.” Etnofoor 28, no. 2 (2016): 13–32.

The Conversation

• “What gangs tell us about the world we live in”, The Conversation, 2 April 2019 (version française ici). 
• “Ethnologue et membre de gang : une expérience nicaraguayenne”, The Conversation, 9 May 2019.
• “From dealing drugs to selling tortillas: the surprising future of former gang members”, The Conversation, 4 July 2019 (version française ici).

Forthcoming publications 
 

• Co-edited with David Lewis, LSE, and Michael Woolcock, World Bank. New Mediums, Better Messages? How Innovations in Translation, Engagement, and Advocacy are Changing International Development, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Activities

• Gangs, Gangsters, and Ganglands: Towards a Global Comparative Ethnography – multi-pillared and multi-year research programme funded through a European Research Council Advanced Grant exploring the global evolution of gangs, through comparative ethnographic research on gang evolution, the cross-historical and contextual collection of life histories, and the spatial analysis of urban security configurations in order to typologise the trajectories of gangs across the world from organisational, individual, and contextual perspectives.
• The Chicago School Re-considered (with Gareth A. Jones, LSE) – research project based on archival research, exploring forgotten aspects of the famous Chicago school of sociology, including in particular its origins, research ethics and practices, its comparative global urbanism, and its collaborative ethnographies. Includes the curation of an edited collection on The Enduring Relevance of the Chicago School of Sociology.