Career
Marjo de Theije studies the cultural, social, economic, and environmental aspects of resource extraction. Most of her research focused on small-scale gold mining in the Amazon region, especially in Brazil and the Guianas, but she has also done fieldwork in Bolivia, and collaborated with researchers in Colombia and Peru. In Suriname and French Guiana, she works with the Brazilian migrant miners and the Aluku and Ndyuka maroon population in the gold fields. In Brazil most of her work has been in Pará, notably the Tapajós region.
De Theije worked with a Brazilian research team in the Gold Matters research project, exploring how gold mining practices are embedded in the Amazon. What are the opportunities for a transition to social, economic and environmental sustainability of small-scale gold mining? She also researched the cross-border social and economic impacts of the Venezuelan crisis in the Brazilian state of Roraima and the Venezuelan province of Bolívar. She previously led the research project GOMIAM, in which partners from five Amazonian countries studied and compared different social, economic and technological aspects of gold mining. Read more about her research on her scientist profile.
Career at VU Amsterdam
Since 2023 Marjo de Theije serves as Head of Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology. She has supervised many Master and PhD candidates with topics related to religion, social movements and democratization and she is still available for such research projects. Projects on mining, cultural, economic and technological aspects of natural resource extraction and use, related migration, and sustainability more broadly interest her most.
What do you hope to contribute to the new faculty?
Marjo de Theije: 'Anthropology is pre-eminently the discipline that bridges social sciences, humanities and religious studies.'
