Contact details
Email: e.l.s.vanheeswijk@uu.nl

Q1: What is your background and how did you come to this project?
I’m an anthropologist working at the intersection of security, identity, and everyday social life. Throughout my BA in Cultural Anthropology at Utrecht University and my MA in Intelligence, Security and Strategic Studies through the IMSISS program (University of Glasgow, Dublin City University, and Charles University), I became fascinated by how communities form and mobilize around practices that others might find controversial, and how security is experienced and understood within these groups.

Q2: What kind of questions drive your research?
What drew me to this project is a compelling tension in Germany: some of Europe’s strictest firearms regulations coexist with a thriving culture of recreational shooting and hunting. Public debates are polarized, often framed in binaries of control versus rights. But what happens beyond these headlines? What unfolds in shooting clubs, training ranges, and hunting lodges where firearms shape community life? Through ethnographic research, I can explore these worlds from within. My background in criminology and security studies helps me understand regulatory frameworks, while my anthropological training drives me to ask: What role do firearms play in forming communities? How do shared practices create bonds, identities, and belonging?

Q3: What are your 3 most essential fieldwork items?
My notebook, to write things down as much as possible. Writing helps me think, reflect, and remember. Coffee, because fieldwork days are long, often start early, and are rarely predictable. And time, to really understand my field site and reflect on what I’m seeing, hearing, and feeling. Though I have to add a fourth: a good pair of walking shoes, as so much happens in the in-between moments, walking to and from places, walking in the forest for long hours.