Roanne has conducted research all over the world, from
Inuit villages in Greenland to the slums of Jakarta and
from refugee-camps in Greece to brothels in Austria;
amongst conflict actors in Haiti as well as with
sexworkers in the Netherlands.
In 2014, she obtained her Ph.D. (with distinction/cum
laude) at the Amsterdam Institute of Social Science
Research (AISSR). She has since worked as a consultant
for the Danish Institute of International Studies (DIIS)
on a research project on the future of cities, offered
consultancy and academic advice to different
Non-Governmental Organisations and companies, and
participated in a 5-year long international research at
the International Institute of Social Studies.
Currently, Roanne is affiliated to the University of
Amsterdam. She leads an international research team,
investigating the future of public health in different
countries. She is also chairwoman of the Dutch Future
Society.
As an anthropologist of the future, Roanne’s approach
typically involves in-depth interviews, extensive
literature research and participant observation: a
methodology in which the researchers emerges herself
deeply into the topic of study, so that she can
experience, rather than just cognitively understand the
matter at hand (simpler put: Roanne personally tries out
many of the things that she studies). She combines this
way of working with futuristic scenario-building – a
method in which she was trained at Utrecht University.
In her ongoing research, Roanne focuses on what she
calls ‘sustainable humanity’. In the next 20 years,
humanity is likely to face more changes than the past
300 years. Roanne asks what keeps us human, in times of
robotification, Artificial Intelligence, fake news and
global crises. How can we move ahead as modern citizens
and digitizing companies, without losing human values?
If decisions in hospitals are increasingly led by big
data, how will this change our health policies? If
robotics continue to improve, will we develop friendly
relationships with them in the future, or will they take
care of us when we are ill or lonely? How will we make
friends, or love, or babies, in 5, 10 or 30 years from
now?
Roanne has won several academic scholarships for her
research projects, amongst which funding from the
Amsterdam Centre for European Studies (ACES), the
Catherine van Tussenbroeckfonds and the European
Research Committee.
