01-10-2026

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Daphina Misiedjan joined the KITLV Management Team in July 2026. In addition, Daphina has been appointed as a Senior Researcher at KITLV. Her current research focuses on offshore oil developments in Suriname and their human rights implications, climate justice in the Caribbean part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and environmental justice in Rotterdam.

In November 2026, she will start the project 'Lost without a trace? Capturing immaterial loss and damage for climate justice', funded by an NWO Open Competition XS grant.

The project explores what happens when climate change uproots lives, erodes a sense of belonging, and makes home feel unfamiliar. Communities such as those on hurricane-prone Saint Martin face not only the material destruction of infrastructure, livelihoods, and ecosystems, but also profound immaterial losses, including ecological grief, the loss of ancestral land, disrupted heritage, and diminished identity. Yet these harms remain largely invisible in international debates on loss and damage, which are still dominated by economic metrics.

The project develops a new interdisciplinary framework that combines legal scholarship, data science, and community-based ethnography to identify, analyze, and represent immaterial loss and damage. In doing so, it seeks to ensure that these deeply felt but often overlooked harms are recognized in law and policy.