Grondelaers, Hannah

Hannah Grondelaers is an FWO PhD Fellow at Ghent University’s Social Work and Social Pedagogy Department and is affiliated to the UNU-CRIS Migration and Social Policy cluster. Under the supervision of Ine Lietaert and Robin Vandevoordt she conducts research on Ukrainian women’s return trajectories between Belgium and Ukraine. More specifically, she will use multi-scalar ethnography to study how gendered and geopolitical imaginaries on different scales (EU, Belgian/Ukrainian, social work and personal scale) shape the women’s trajectories.

Hannah holds a Bachelor and Master in History from KU Leuven. She graduated from her second Master in Conflict and Development Studies at Ghent University. For her master’s thesis, Hannah studied the context-specific solidarity and support practices emerging between Ukrainian refugee mothers living at an emergency reception centre. Before undertaking her thesis research there, she already worked at this reception centre as a student worker, mainly for SOS Children’s Villages at the Child Friendly Space of the centre. In this way, she gained practical experience and discovered her passion for working with refugees.

Before becoming an affiliated PhD Fellow, Hannah already completed a research internship with UNU-CRIS’ Migration and Social Policy cluster. As an intern, she worked on a project for Caritas International Belgium that seeks to strengthen capacities for return and reintegration counselling through civil society organizations.