Ward Berenschot is a Professor in Comparative Political Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, and a Senior Researcher at the Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (KITLV). His research focuses on the functioning of democracy, patronage politics and identity politics, with a special focus on Indonesia and India. Through long-term fieldwork he uses ethnographic methods for comparative research on how political power and equality were produced and maintained. He among others wrote Riot Politics about Hindu-Muslim violence in India (Colombia University Press 2011), and Democracy for Sale about elections in Indonesia (Cornell University Press 2019). In spring 2026 his book Rightless Resistance about land conflicts between palm oil firms and Indonesians will be published (Cornell UP, co-authored with Ahmad Dhiaulhaq, Afrizal and Otto Hospes). He also produced the documentary Colonial Debris on this topic (2024, Watchdoc).

Research topics include:

• Patronage- and clientelist politics
• Land conflicts
• Identity and ethnicity in democratic processes
• Local democracy and governance
• Political violence
• Comparative political ethnography

Website

University of Amsterdam: Prof. dr. W.J. (Ward) Berenschot – Universiteit van Amsterdam

KITLV: Berenschot, Prof. dr. Ward – KITLV