Tessa Diphoorn

Tessa Diphoorn works as an associate professor at the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Her research and teaching focuses on security, violence, and sovereignty in Kenya and South Africa. She previously conducted ethnographic research on private security in South Africa and is the author of Twilight Policing: Private Security and Violence in Urban South Africa (University of California Press, 2016). She is also the co-author of the book Nairobi Becoming: Security Uncertainty and Contingency, with Joost Fontein, Peter Lockwood, and Constance Smith (Punctum, 2025), and co-editor of the volume Security Blurs: The Politics of Plural Security Provision (Routledge, 2019). with Erella Grassiani. Her current on-going book project analyses police reform and oversight in Kenya. In addition to her writing, she is also the co-host and co-founder of the podcast series Travelling Concepts on Air, where she explores the notion of travelling concepts with her colleague Brianne McGonigle Leyh.