Mattias De Backer

Mattias De Backer is research professor at the Department of Criminology at Vrije Universiteit Brussel, co-coordinator of the Horizon Europe project GATHERINGS, editor-in-chief of the open-access journal Criminological Encounters and co-chair of the ESC Working Group on Space, Place and Crime. He holds degrees in Philosophy, Urban Studies and Criminology, and works on topics related to youth, public space, gender & diversity, the city, migration and creative/participatory methods.

Mattias has published the monograph Radicalisering: donkere spiegel van een kwetsbare samenleving (2020) and the edited collections Refugee Youth, Migration, Justice and Public Space (2023) and Order and Conflict in Public Space (2016) and articles in, amongst others, Space and Culture, Qualitative Research, Social and Cultural Geography, Emotion, Society and Space and Urban Environment.

Research Expertise: Criminology, social and cultural geography, public space, urban youth, deprived neighbourhoods, migration and diversity, gender and intersectionality

Research Methodology: qualitative research methodologies, PAR, creative and arts-based methods