Jacqueline Vel is senior researcher at the Van Vollenhoven Institute of Leiden Law School on the theme of law, governance and society in Indonesia. Since June 2019 she was coordinator at VVI of the project “Strengthening Legal Education in Eastern Indonesia (SLEEI)” funded by NUFFIC’s Orange Knowledge Programme. The project aims to contribute to making legal education in Indonesia become more relevant for supporting the rule of law and providing legal services that common citizens need. Meanwhile she continued her research about agrarian change and how it affects local economies, which is also addressed in her latest publication, that returns to the topic of her dissertation.

In 2023 she initiated two research and writing projects with PhD students and  colleagues at VVI and the law faculty of Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The first is building on the experiences in SLEEI: the project for innovation of teaching adat law (PINTAL). The second initiative is a collaboration with colleagues of the VVI and UGM on writing a book on Law Making Politics Under Democratic Decline in Indonesia (LAMPU).

Jacqueline obtained her MSc degree at Wageningen University (agricultural/development economics, 1983). During her studies she was assistant at the agricultural law department, and conducted research in Sri Lanka on community mutual assistance in a poor village. She worked as a development worker and researcher on Sumba (Indonesia) from 1984-1990.  Her PhD dissertation (1994, Wageningen University, agricultural law department, supervisor Franz von Benda-Beckmann) was entitled "The Uma-economy: indigenous economics and development work in Lawonda, Sumba (eastern Indonesia)", with an Indonesian translation in 2010. Furthermore, she worked as a Policy advisor at ICCO’s South Asia desk (1995-96); as an assistant professor in Development Sociology and Modern Asian History at the University of Amsterdam, and as coordinator of Asian studies in Amsterdam (1997-2006).

During her carrier from 1984 until present, Sumba Island remained a continuous source of case studies for her research in in the many interdisciplinary research programs she has participated in. In 2006 Jacqueline started working in Leiden, at the VVI and KITLV, doing research on democratization and local politics, changes in land tenure security, access to justice for the poor, and social and legal aspects of introducing new crops for developing biofuel production in Indonesia.  From 2015 – 2017 she also worked at KITLV as coordinator of the collaborative project ‘Governance, Markets and Citizens‘ of three social sciences and economics research programs concerned with contemporary developments in Indonesia, as part of the Scientific Program Indonesia-Netherlands of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences.

Publications