Floris Liekens

Floris Liekens is a PhD candidate at Vrije Universiteit Brussel in Urban Criminology and teaching assistant for the modules Crime and the City 1 & 2. He holds a master in Criminological Sciences (UGent) and a master in Advanced Research in Criminology (UGent, UKent, EUR). He previously worked as a teaching assistant at the ULB and UGent, and as a research assistant at the NICC. He’s profoundly interested in topics related to migration, control, harm, violence, exclusion and social justice. Floris is editorial assistant for the open-access journal Criminological Encounters.

He’s currently working as a doctoral research on the Interdisciplinary Research Program (IRP) Cities and Newcomers. He researches fear, social exclusion, and territoriality among unauthorised people in the Brussels Capital Region. The objective is to make visible and put into questions the relation between the condition of being unauthorised and fear and social exclusion in urban space. It’s a participatory project being developed together with local partners. Floris is supervised by Prof. Dr. Lucas Melgaço and Prof. Dr. Mattias de Backer.