Josien de Klerk
Associate Professor
- Name
- Dr. J. de Klerk
- Telephone
- +31 70 800 9557
- j.de.klerk@luc.leidenuniv.nl
- ORCID iD
- 0000-0002-9165-4100
Josien de Klerk is a medical anthropologist and Associate Professor at Leiden University College. She has extensive research experience in Eastern Africa on topics of aging, community-based and kinship care, HIV/AIDS and chronic caring, grief, stress and wellbeing and the politics and practices of public health interventions. Her current collaborative research focuses on narratives of good parenting and the politics of care amongst community counselors in a parenting intervention for mothers and infants in Johannesburg, South Africa. At LUC she holds the portfolio for societal engagement. Josien is co-convenor of the Leiden Medical Anthropology Network (LUMAN).
Josien de Klerk is a cultural and medical anthropologist and Associate Professor at Leiden University College. She is the co-PI of the collaborative project: ‘Good Parenting’: Evidence and Care-work in a home visiting program to promote maternal sensitivity and parental reflective functioning in Alexandra township, Johannesburg, South Africa’.
Josien obtained her PhD from the University of Amsterdam in 2011. Her PhD and subsequent Post-Doctoral research centered around aging in the era of AIDS in Kenya and Tanzania, looking at informal care, including self-care, of both affected and infected older people in rural and urban settings, using a storytelling framework and situating biographical stories historically. Her long-term ethnographic fieldwork is the basis of critical analysis of the politics around aging and care in the treatment-dominated AIDS landscape in East-Africa.
For the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research in Amsterdam, Josien is the senior social scientist in an interdisciplinary project (2019-2023) aiming to improve availability, access to and retention in HIV Care in rural Tanzania. This project amongst others pilots a model of decentralized HIV care
Josien has alternated an academic career with applied research and project management for different NGOs, including Doctors without Borders and World Granny. At LUC she holds the portfolio for societal engagement and is involved in making visible LUC’s unique approaches to engaged teaching and research in the city of the Josien is a member of the Knowledge Platform Senior Friendly City and collaborates with local partners in her teaching.
Next to that, Josien is co-convenor of the Leiden Medical Anthropology Network (LUMAN). She also produced two podcasts for Leiden University titled "An Aging World" and "Anthropologic". These podcasts can be found here.
Research Themes
Recurrent themes in Josien’s research include aging and (grand)parenting, chronic caring and living with chronic conditions, stress, grief, and wellbeing, community-based and kinship care and the politics and practices of (global) health interventions.
Current Research
Her current collaborative research focuses on the making of evidence and the evidence of care-work in home-visit reports produced in a parenting intervention directed at pregnant mothers and mothers of infants in Johannesburg, South Africa over the 10-year life of the intervention.
Teaching
In her teaching Josien aims to experiment with different ways of learning, using creative approaches.
Courses
- Health and Development: HIV/AIDS in Africa
- Aging and Society
- Medical Anthropology
- Research Design
Associate Professor
- Faculty of Governance and Global Affairs
- Leiden University College The Hague
Work address
Anna van BuerenpleinAnna van Buerenplein 301
2595 DG The Hague
Room number 4.43
Contact
- Tusajigwe E., Klerk J. de & Moyer E. (2024), HIV status disclosure in the era of treat-all: the complexities of societal expectations and disclosure in marital relationships in Shinyanga, Tanzania, AIDS Care 36(12): 1891-1901.
- Miller T. & Klerk J. de (2024), An uncertain recovery: the physical toll of COVID-19 infection on liberal arts and sciences students in the Netherlands, Global Public Health 19(1): 2372788.
- Klerk J. de, Dawson N., Jo-Hsuan Chen .J.-H., Reich F.M., Delansay D., Kunst M., Collado D., Khumalo T., Khoza L., Khumalo S., Ramoshaba, Rumo M. & Matlaila M. (2024), Early childhood community practitioners’ analyses of new mother’s challenges in Alexandra township South Africa: a collaboration between academics and practitioners, Perspectives in Infant Mental Health 2(1): 8-12.
- Reynolds L., Moye E., Meta J., Tusajigwe E. & Klerk J. de (2023), Mediating immediacy in the era of ‘treat all’: the (chrono)logics of HIV treatment initiation in Shinyanga, Tanzania, Social Science & Medicine 338: 116317 (116317).
- Okere N.E., Meta J., Maokola W., Martelli G., Praag E. van, Naniche D., Gomez G.B., Pozniak A., Rinke de Wit T., Klerk J. de & Hermans S. (2022), Quality of care in a differentiated HIV service delivery intervention in Tanzania: a mixed-methods study, PLoS ONE 17(3): 1-25 (0265307).
- Klerk J. de & Moyer E.M. (2021), Chronic Caring in Unstable Landscapes (Somatosphere). [other].
- Klerk J. de, Bortolani A., Meta J., Tusajigwe E., Rinke de Wit T. & Moyer E. (2021), ‘It is not fashionable to suffer nowadays’ : Community motivations to repeatedly participate in outreach HIV testing indicate UHC potential in Tanzania, PLoS ONE : .
- Klerk J. de (17 May 2020), Touch in the new '1,5 meter society'. Touch in the new '1,5 meter' society. Wiley: Social Anthropology . [blog entry].
- Reynolds L., Klerk J. de, Meta J. & Moyer E. (2020), Mediating immediate linkage to care in the era of 'treat all': Questioning the (chrono)logics of HIV treatment initiation in Shinyanga, Tanzania. 23rd International AIDS conference (July 2020) 6 July 2020 - 10 July 2020.
- Nardo P. de, Okere N., Klerk J. de, Gentilotti E., Wit R.T. de, Bortolani A., Pellizzer G., Hermans S., Praag E. van, Gomez G., Mfinanga S., Somi G., Desderius B., Pozniak A. & Test & Treat Study Group (2020), Protocol and Operational Procedures for the Implementation of a Differentiated HIV Service Delivery Model in North-Western Tanzania: A Multicentre Implementation Research, International Journal of Health Systems and Implementation Research 4(2): 80-91.
- Okere N.E., Censi V., Machibya C., Costigan K., Katambi P., Martelli G., Klerk J. de, Hermans S., Gomez G., Pozniak A., Rinke de Wit T. & Naniche D. (2020), Beyond viral suppression: Quality of Life among stable ART clients in a differentiated service delivery intervention in Tanzania, Health and Quality of Life Outcomes : .
- Klerk J. de (2019), Monitoring the body: grandmothers’ ability to provide ‘expert’ care for grandchildren living with HIV in northwest Tanzania, Anthropology and Medicine 27(1): 17-31.
- Klerk J. de (11 May 2016), Time and Bodies in Grandparenthood. Time and Bodies in Grandparenthood: Association for Anthropology, Gerontology and the Life-Course. [blog entry].
- Klerk J. de & Moyer E.M. (2016), “A Body Like a Baby”: Social Self-Care among Older People with Chronic HIV in Mombasa, Medical Anthropology 36(4): 305-318.
- Klerk J. de (2016), Making sense of neglect in Northwest Tanzania. In: Hoffman J. & Pype K. (Eds.), Ageing in Sub-Saharan Africa. Spaces and Practices of Care. Bristol: Policy Press. 137-157.
- Klerk Josien de (2016), Slam that # ethnography! Unbounded Ethnography [Slam that #Ethnography! Unbounded Ethnography] (translation: Klerk J. de), Allegralaboratory.net : .
- Klerk J. de (2 November 2015), Conference review: MAGic 2015 Anthropology and Global Health: Interrogating Theory, Policy and Practice. Conference review: MAGic 2015 Anthropology and Global Health: Interrogating Theory, Policy and Practice: Somatosphere. [blog entry].
- Klerk J. de (2014), Heaviness, intensity, and intimacy: Dutch elder care in the context of retrenchment of the welfare state, 1(1): .
- Klerk J. de (2013), Being tough, being healthy. Local forms of counselling in response to adult death in northwest Tanzania, 15(Suppl 4): S482-94.
- Klerk J. de (2012), The compassion of concealment. Silence between older caregivers and dying patients in the AIDS era, northwest Tanzania, 14(Suppl 1): S27-38.
- Klerk J. de (2011), Being old in times of AIDS. Ageing, Caring and Relating in northwest Tanzania. African Studies Collection no. 37. Leiden: Africa Studies Centre.
- Shiripinda I. (2009), Ouder worden met HIV. Ervaringen van migranten in Nederland. In: Smit C., Brinkman K., Rümke K. & Knecht-Van Eekelen A. de (Eds.), Oud worden met HIV. Gezondheid en ziekte van oudere HIV-patienten: Een inventarisatie. Amsterdam: AIDS Fonds. 120-128.
- Burchardt M., Hardon A. & Klerk J. de (2009), Faith Matters. Religion and Biomedical Treatment for HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. Diemen: AMB.