Lydia Letsch is a PhD candidate in Transnational Governance, a joint program of the Scuola Normale Superiore and Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies. Her research focuses on security and conflict dynamics, local governance and border communities in North Africa. Drawing on postcolonial and critical approaches to security, her doctoral project examines how local security arrangements emerge and function beyond formal institutions and how they impact communities in remote areas.

She holds a BA in International Development and a BA in Anthropology from the University of Vienna and a MA in Peace Research and Security Policy from the University of Hamburg. Before joining Scuola Normale Superiore, she worked in several civil society and peacebuilding initiatives in Tunisia and the Western Balkans, and interned for the Austrian Institute for International Affairs (oiip) and the United Nations Interregional Crime and Justice Research Institute (UNICRI).

Research interests: critical security studies, Maghreb countries, non-state governance, and postcolonial theory