She previously held teaching and research positions at Leiden University, the University of the West Indies, and the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV). She has conducted fieldwork in Jamaica, Curaçao and Suriname on topics ranging from the urban environment to the political economy of multiculturalism. Her current research, in Jamaica, studies how criminal organizations and the state share control over urban spaces and populations, and the formulations of governance and citizenship that result from this. She is the author of several peer-reviewed articles in journals such as Anthropological Quarterly, Ethnic and Racial Studies, and Social and Cultural Geography. In addition, she is the editor of The Caribbean City (Ian Randle, 2008) and the co-editor of Urban Pollution (with Eveline Dürr, Berghahn, 2010).