Jutta Bakonyi

Professor Jutta Bakonyi is a Professor in Development and Conflict at Durham University's School of Government and International Affairs. She currently serves as Deputy Head of School for Research and has previously held significant leadership positions including Executive Director for the Durham Global Security Institute (2018-19), Postgraduate Research Director (2015-17), and MSc programme director of the Durham Global Security Institute (2012-15).

Dr. Bakonyi earned her PhD from the University of Hamburg in 2010, with research supported by the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology (2006-08). Her academic journey includes positions as Lecturer in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Magdeburg (2008-09), research fellow at the University of Hamburg (2001-04), and work as a conflict management expert in Southern Somalia (2004-05). From 2009-2012, she built the German Civil Peace Service program in Kenya before joining Durham University in 2012.

Professor Bakonyi's research focuses on the causes, actors and dynamics of violence and war, orders of violence beyond the state, state dynamics, and international interventions, with particular attention to everyday experiences. She has developed a distinctive interest in the material side of violence and international relations. Her latest monograph, Precarious Urbanism, explores connections between displacement and city-making in Somali contexts. She has recently turned her attention to infrastructure studies, examining how infrastructures shape capitalist dynamics and co-produce social orders.

Her current research portfolio includes three major projects: an AHRC/DFID-funded study comparing UN and AU military peacekeepers' protection practices in DRC and Somalia; a Carnegie-funded project using an infrastructural lens to examine international relations between the Arabian Gulf and Horn of Africa; and a GCRF-funded project investigating how urban poor access infrastructures across eight cities in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Somaliland and Zimbabwe.

• 2019: Steering Committee of the ECPR Standing Group on Political Violence
• 2007: Speaker DVPW Working Group Orders of Violence
• Consultancies for IOM, BMZ, DFID, IRC, GIZ, Rift Valley Institute, Bertelsmann Foundation, and Danish Refugee Council
• Research grants from ESRC, AHRC, GCRF, Carnegie New York, British Academy, and Leverhulme Trust

Professor Bakonyi supervises doctoral students including Azad Nebi Hasan, Shakkir Tabaqchali, and Vanessa Bentil. Her grant portfolio demonstrates significant external funding success, with projects examining protection practices of military peacekeepers, infrastructural relations between the Gulf and Horn of Africa, and urban poor's access to infrastructure. Her research combines theoretical innovation with practical engagement in conflict-affected regions, particularly focusing on East Africa and urban contexts.