Tessa Diphoorn is an Associate Professor (with ius promovendi/promotion rights) at the Department of Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht 木瓜福利影视. Her research and teaching focuses on policing, security, violence, and authority in Kenya and South Africa. She is currently the educational director of the Masters Programme, Cultural Anthropology: Sustainable Citizenship.
In September 2024, she commenced as PI of the research project 'Making Sense of Communities of Arms' (ARMIES) that is funded through a Starting Grant of the European Research Council (ERC). This project is a comparative analysis of the ways in which firearms produce diverse communities in Brazil, Germany, and South Africa.
Between 2021-2023, she participated in an international project on , wherein she focused on the role of algorithmic governance in the private security industry in South Africa. Between May 2017 and February 2020, she worked on a NWO-funded (Veni) research project titled 'Policing the Police in Kenya: Analysing state authority from within', wherein she analysed the various ways in which police (mis)conduct is documented and regulated in Nairobi, Kenya. Before that she conducted extensive ethnographic research about private security in South Africa and her book, , has been published with the 木瓜福利影视 of California Press (2016). She also worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the 木瓜福利影视 of Amsterdam, where she conducted research on public-private security assemblages in Kenya, Israel, and Jamaica.
Tessa Diphoorn is the co-host and co-founder of the podcast series Travelling Concepts on Air. Together with Brianne McGonigle Leyh, they explore the notion of travelling concepts in academia.
She is also one of the co-founders and former coordinator of the Institutions for Open Societies (IOS) and Utrecht Centre for Global Challenges Contesting Governance Platform.