Jan Beek

Dr. Jan Beek is a Professor at Bielefeld University's Faculty of Sociology, specializing in the ethnographic study of policing dynamics, bureaucratic structures, and transnational fraud mechanisms. His research explores how individuals and institutions categorize identities during acts of control in public spaces, with a focus on Africa, India, Germany, and multicultural contexts.

He leads the 'Policing as a Practice of Categorization' project, employing methodologically pluralistic approaches to analyze police work in diverse settings. Notable contributions include defining new research fields like the anthropology of fraud and policing in multicultural societies. His work critically examines statehood production through everyday police interactions, as detailed in his book Stateness: Police work in Ghana.

His research appears in journals like Africa, Journal of Modern African Studies, and Social Anthropology. Awards include the Franz Xaver Kaufmann Prize and the Thomas A. Herz Prize for qualitative research. Beek's fieldwork spans Ghana, Kenya, India, and Germany, emphasizing global comparative perspectives in policing and bureaucratic practices.