Dr. Benjamin Etzold

I am a social geographer, migration scholar and conflict researcher, and member of the BCDSS. At BCDSS, I lead the research group "Lived Experiences of Violence and Coerced Livelihoods in Translocal Spaces of Conflict" (VIOLET) in the second funding phase. VIOLET is a collaborative endeavour between the BCDSS and bicc – Bonn Centre for Conflict Studies. This research group explores the entanglements of violence, labour exploitation and livelihood precarity in translocal settings of armed conflict and displacement. It seeks to answer how livelihoods and strong asymmetrical dependencies evolve under violent conditions, and which traces lived experiences of violence leave within societies.

Over the past 19 years, I worked on people's livelihoods, vulnerabilities and translocal lives, trajectories of migration and displacement, experiences of violence, as well as informal labour and patterns of food security – predominantly in countries of the Global South. I studied Geography, Sociology, Political Sciences and Development Studies, and hold a PhD in Geography from the University of Bonn, which I obtained for a study on street food vending in Dhaka, Bangladesh (2012). Since 2016, I work as senior researcher at bicc, where I led or was part of several research projects at the intersection of forced migration studies and peace and conflict studies, most notably the EU-funded Horizon 2020 project 'Transnational Figurations of Displacement' (TRAFIG, 2019-2022), the collaborative project 'Forced Migration and Refugee Studies: Networking and Knowledge Transfer' (FFVT, 2020-2025), and the UK-funded study 'Mobility, Translocality and Gendered Violence in the Bangladesh-Myanmar Borderlands' within the XCEPT program (2024-25). (see my staff page at bicc). 

I published two books – The Politics of Street Food. Contested Governance and Vulnerabilities in Dhaka's Field of Street Vending (2013, Steiner Verlag) and Illegalisierte Migration in der Flüssigen Moderne. Migration aus Afrika und die europäische Grenzsicherungspolitik (2009, WVB) – and two edited volumes – Translocal Lives in Times of Conflict: Understanding People’s (Im)Mobilities and (Dis)Connections under Conditions of Violence and War (2026 with M. Godin in the IMISCOE research Series, Springer) and Environment, Migration and Adaptation. Evidence and Politics of Climate Change in Bangladesh (2015 with B. Mallick, AHDPH). I am co-editor of the annually published Report Globale Flucht (with J. Oltmer et al., 2025 Fischer; 2026 transcript). My academic work has been published in numerous international journals, including Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; Gender, Place & Culture; International Migration; Population, Space and Place; Geographica Helvetica; Erdkunde; Die Erde; Geographische Rundschau; Climate and Development; Migration and Development; Comparative Population Studies; International Quarterly for Asian Studies; and in multiple books. 

2007–2012
PhD Studies, University of Bonn, Department of Geography

2003–2007
Graduate Studies (Diplom) in Geography, Sociology and Politic Science, University of Bonn

2002–2003
Undergraduate Studies in Development Studies, Flinders University of South Australia, Australia

1999–2002
Undergraduate Studies in Geography, Sociology and Geology, University of Stuttgart

since 2016
Senior Researcher, BICC (Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies)

04–09/2026
Guest Lecturer, Geography Department, University of Bonn

05–06/2023
Guest Professorship, Institute for Geography, University Innsbruck, Austria

10/2020–03/2021
Interim Professorship, Institute of Geographical Sciences, Centre for Development Studies, Freie Universität Berlin

03–08/2020
Guest Lecturer, Department of Geography and Regional Research, University of Vienna, Austria

03–04/2013
Guest Lecturer, University of Sussex, School of Global Studies

2011–2012
Consultant, UN University, Institute for Environment and Human Security, Bonn

2007–2016
Lecturer and Research Associate, Geography Department, University of Bonn