prof. dr. Dimitris Dalakoglou

Full Professor, Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, Social and Cultural Anthropology

Full Professor, Research Programmes - Social Sciences, Mobilities, Beliefs and Belonging: Confronting Global Inequalities and Insecurities (MOBB)

Personal information

Dimitris has been Full Professor at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam since 2015, where he holds the core departmental Chair of Social Anthropology and Sociology of Development and co-directs the laboratory on Infrastructures, Sustainability and Commons.

He is an anthropologist of Europe with expertise on the Balkans, Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. Since 2004 he has been developing a more global study of infrastructures (incl. labour) and democracy, first with the project 'An anthropology of the road', which was focused geographically on Albania and Eastern Europe. He later continued that line of research with the project infra-demos, which studied infrastructures and democracy and was funded by the Dutch Research Council (Vidi-Research Talent grant.) In 2023 he extended this line of research with a Stimulation grant from the Dutch Ministry of Education with his project Infrastructures, Sustainability and Commons: A Global Studies Perspective, see also Archeo-Commons.

In addition to his work on infrastructures, since 2008 he has been working on an anthropology of crisis, grassroots movements and the city, with the project crisis-scapes, which was funded by an ESRC-Future Research Leaders. He continues to work on themes of infrastructures, sustainability, commons, crises and democracy.

He has authored over 100 articles, book chapters and commentaries published since 2010. His books include: Skouries (2024), An anthropology of the Crisis (2024) Infrastructural Harm (2023), On the Road (2022), The Road (2017), Critical Times in Greece (2018), Crisis-scapes (2014), Roads and Anthropology, (2014, 2012) and Revolt and Crisis in Greece (2011).He was also an associate and advisory editor of the International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest.

He has co-produced and co-researched the documentaries: Colony, Wasting the West, Future Suspended, Politics of Knives, and Landscapes of Emergency, see also Athens Social Meltdown.

His work has been featured by international media in more than 10 countries. Whilst he has co-founded the 'Amsterdam Ethnographic Film Day' and the 'Amsterdam Anthropology Lecture Series'.

Previously he was Senior Lecturer at Sussex University (2009-2015) and Teaching Fellow at UCL (2007-2009). He has held visiting positions at Princeton University (2017-2018), CUNY Graduate Center (2013-2014), University College London (2008-2011) and Ca' Foscari University of Venice (2005-06). He was external examiner for UCL Bachelor in Anthropology (2010-2016). He is Research Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social and Humanitarian Crises of the department of Social Work of the University of Western Attica

He is in the editorial boards of the journals City (UK), Anthropology and Materialism (FR) and ANUAC Rivista (IT).

Books

See Dimitris' Personal Website

Research

Research Grants

2023-2026 Stimulation Grant for Infrastructure, Sustainability and Commons: A Global Studies perspective
- 2025-2026 Archeo-Commons
2017-2022 VIDI Innovative Research Grant for Infra-Demos
2017-2018 PRECARIAT: Deregulation of Labour Market in Greece of crisis
2012 - 2014:ESRC/Future Research Leaders grant for the project The City at a Time of Crisis: Tranformations of Public Spaces in Athens (crisis-cape.net)
2005 - 2006: Marie Curie Fellowship in Social History of Europe for the project Social Change, Material Culture and Migration: The Case of Albanian Migration to Greece and to Italy.
2004 - 2008: Hellenic Republic Fellowship (IKY ) for the PhD project An Anthropology of the Road.

PhD students

I currently supervise

Baris Esser, Catastrophising and Emergency rhetorics after the earthquacke in Turckey and Syria
Robert Dillema, Becoming in the calisthenic court: Ambition and expectations in South East Amsterdam
Christos Giovanopoulos, Solidarity and Emergence of new infrastructural networks.

In the past supervised:

2026 Giorgos SerdentakisFood, Cooking and Solidarity under Conditions of crisis
2025 Antonis Alexandridis Borders, Infrastructures, (im)mobility and Human Filtration
2023, Bahoz Aras, The Origins of post-authoritarian Federalism: Iraq 1992-2003. VU
2023, Tarryn Frankish, (Desmond Tutu grant funded) The ‘born-free generation’: Narrating memory in post-Apartheid South Africa.
2022, Elena Bonanini, From Syria to Brussels: Refugees Trajectories in Greece, VU
2017, Alexander Dunlap, Renewing Destruction: Green Energy and Land-Grabbing in Oaxaca, Mexico. VU
2016, Jacken Alfred Waters, (ESRC funded) Production of Urban Spaces and Protest in London Sussex University.
2015, Chet Fransch, (Desmond Tutu grant funded) Wood, carved by the knife of circumstance": Cape Rapists and Rape in South Africa, c. 1910-1980. VU
2025 Giorgos Poulimenakos'Commodity Chains and Ports: Chinese expansion in Pireaus Port, Greece' (Transferred to University of Oslo, 2025)
2026 Anna Giulia Della Puppa'Touristification processes and the socio-material effects of digital infrastructure in the city of Athens.' (Transferred to University of Rome