Members of Burma Project
Tom Kramer
Tom Kramer (1968) is a political scientist and with over 15-years of working experience on Burma and its border regions, which he has visited regularly since 1993.
His work focuses on developing a better understanding of the drugs market in the region as a whole, the relationship between production and consumption, and alternative development (AD). Together with the Drugs and Democracy Programme, Kramer has created a regional network of local researchers, and is also carrying out advocacy towards policy makers in the region for more sustainable and human drug policies.
Since 2005 Kramer also works on Afghanistan, with a focus onthe relationship between drugs & conflict, and the involvement of western security forces in counter narcotic activities. Apart from his work for TNI, he is also a writer and freelance consultant, specializing on ethnic conflict and civil society in Burma. He has carried out field research and written reports for a wide range of international NGOs, institutes and UN organisations.
Kevin Woods
Kevin Woods has worked on resource politics in mainland Southeast Asia’s uplands since 1999, including northern Thailand, Laos, and Burma. Since 2002 Kevin has focused his research in and on Burma, with particular focus on resource extraction and land rights in northern Burma’s ceasefire zones. Kevin received a master’s degree at Yale University on political ecology with a thesis on China-Burma cross border timber trade and ceasefire development. Since 2008 Kevin has been a doctoral student at UC-Berkeley in political ecology and geography of war. Kevin’s current research and advocacy with TNI is on Chinese agribusiness, drugs, and cross-border development; ethnic land rights in political transition; and ceasefires, post-war investments, and land conflict in the borderlands.
Pietje Vervest
Pietje Vervest has specialised in the European Union's trade and investment agenda, the international investment regime. Recently she moved to working more on agrarian justice issues. She is also one of the co-founders of the Burma Center Netherlands, where she is still active. She was connected to XminusY for over 20 years and sits on the board of Ander Europa. Pietje is Dutch and studied Economic Anthropoloy at the University of Nijmegen where she developed an Asianfocus. She joined the TNI in 1992 in what originally was the Philippine Project – looking at EU policies towards the Philppines. In teh last 20 years this project grew into what is now called the Economic Justice Programme.
Tom Blickman
Tom Blickman (1957) is an independant researcher and journalist, based in Amsterdam. Before coming to TNI he was active in the squatters and solidarity movements in Amsterdam. He worked for Bureau Jansen & Janssen, a research institute on intelligence and police matters. Now he specialises in International Drug Control Policy and Organised Crime as a researcher at TNI's Drugs & Democracy Programme.
