Project team

Jasmijn Rana - Principal investigator

Jasmijn Rana is Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University. Her research is characterised by a critical look at the contemporary society in which she examines the interplay of embodied processes of identification and classification systems. She is the author of Punching Back: Gender, Religion and Belonging in Women Only Kickboxing and has published articles on Muslim women, sports, diversity in cultural heritage, embodiment, and decolonizing anthropology. Jasmijn is the Principal Investigator of Diversity Outdoors and conducts ethnographic research in the Netherlands and among international outdoor organizations.  

👤 Profile page Jasmijn Rana 
📧 j.rana@fsw.leidenuniv.nl 

Elsa Mertala - PhD candidate

Elsa Mertala is one of the PhD candidates in Diversity Outdoors. Elsa Mertala is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology at Leiden University. Her research explores Black geographies through experiences of hiking and walking in Scotland. Drawing on phenomenology, embodiment, and critical race theory, she examines how Black bodies, nature, and the outdoors intersect in the production of place and belonging. 
Elsa holds a double bachelor’s degree in Social Anthropology and Gender Studies, and a master’s degree in Applied Cultural Analysis from Lund University. Her previous work has engaged with questions of gender, movement, embodiment, and race. Before starting her PhD, Elsa worked in the field of recreation and leisure in Sweden, focusing on equality and equity. Elsa conducts ethnographic research in Scotland. 

👤 Profile page of Elsa Mertala 
📧 e.l.m.mertala@fsw.leidenuniv.nl 

Aslıhan Öztürk - PhD candidate

Aslıhan Öztürk is one of the PhD candidates in Diversity Outdoors. Aslıhan conducts ethnographic fieldwork in Germany, exploring how people of colour experience outdoor hiking and climbing through their senses. Her research uses sensory ethnography to understand how belonging, exclusion, and everyday encounters are felt and negotiated in movement and environment. By focusing on embodied experiences, her work asks how race is lived not only socially and politically, but also sensorially. 
Aslıhan holds a bachelor’s degree in History and a research master’s degree in Social Sciences, both from the University of Amsterdam. Her previous work examined the entanglements of religion, secularity, and race, exploring how embodied practices illuminate broader dynamics of power and inequality across Europe and Turkey. She co-translated the 2025 reissue of Caleidoscopic Visions: The Black, Migrant, and Refugee Women’s Movement in the Netherlands (Amsterdam University Press), and was a fellow at the Netherlands Institute in Turkey (NIT). Her fellowship was jointly supported by Leiden University and Koç University’s Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED) in Istanbul, where she conducted research for her master’s thesis. 

👤 Profile page of Aslıhan Öztürk  
📧 a.ozturk@fsw.leidenuniv.nl 

Annemarie Samuels - Promotor

Annemarie Samuels is Associate Professor at the Leiden Institute of Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology. She has extensive research experience in Indonesia on the topics of narratives, morality, care, HIV/AIDS and disaster and a broad interest in psychological anthropology, narrative studies, phenomenology, and medical anthropology. Annemarie is Principal Investigator of the ERC project Globalizing Palliative Care? A Multi-sited Ethnographic Study of Practices, Policies and Discourses of Care at the End of Life. 

👤 Profile page of Annemarie Samuels 

Szonja Szabó - Research intern

Szonja Szabó is a BSc student of cultural anthropology and development sociology at Leiden University. She is completing a 6-month research internship in Diversity Outdoors as part of her studies. Apart from assistance with administrative tasks, she is conducting ethnographic research into queer people’s outdoor recreation in Hungary.