Sigurd D'hondt

My background is in interaction analysis (qualitative sociological approaches such as EMCA and Goffman's interactionism) and linguistic anthropology. My research explores the nexus between discourse, everyday practices/life-worlds, and broader socio-political transformations. I am particularly interested in how interaction analysis can be recruited as a tool to address broader social issues. In the past I have worked on questions such as: How do Kiswahili-speaking youth cope with inconsistencies in their identity repertoires? What practical knowledge do residents of Dar es Salaam draw on as they hop on and off one of the many minibuses that provide cheap public transportation, and what commonsense geographies and spatialities do they reproduce in the process? How do Flemish criminal lawyers project notions of cultural otherness into the legal space, even though the law itself does not contain any provisions for such a categorization of trial actors?

I come from African Studies, but over the years I have developed a strong interest in language and law and the analysis of courtroom discourse. From 2019 to 2023, I was the PI of an Academy of Finland project that involved a courtroom ethnography of trial performance at the International Criminal Court (ICC). The project combined discourse analysis and courtroom ethnography with the aim of providing an empirical snapshot of how ICC trial actors manage the multiple internal and external tensions facing this emerging, globalized form of criminal justice.

My full list of publications is available here.

I teach in the Language Expert Program and the IMDP Language, Globalization and Intercultural Communication (LAGIC).

Office hours: by appointment (email)