CV

Nicole Ahoya is a Doctoral Researcher in the SNSF research project “Big Data for Precise Interventions: Data-Driven Development in India and Kenya” at the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Lucerne (UNILU).

Her dissertation project, supervised by Prof. Dr. Sandra Bärnreuther and Prof. Dr. Olaf Zenker (Martin Luther University, Halle-Wittenberg), explores "justice" as a newly formulated sustainable development goal. Aiming at both, context-specific and universal notions of justice, it is framed as an approach to “people-centered” justice. She examines the role of (big) data in shaping and facilitating access to justice in Kenya and how justice is increasingly being made accessible by non-state actors, such as entrepreneurs, at the local level.

Prior to her current research project, Nicole Ahoya conducted research on involuntary childlessness and medical travel in and between Kenya and India. From February 2020 until March 2024, she worked as a Lecturer, Research Assistant, and Research Associate at the department. She has designed and taught courses on the Anthropology of Law, Human Rights, and Justice, Anthropology of Digitalization, East Africa, and Introduction to Anthropology. In addition to her studies in Anthropology (BA and MA) at the University of Zurich and Nairobi, Nicole also holds law degrees (BLaw and MLaw) from the University of Zurich. Having been trained in Law and Anthropology, she has a keen interest in bridging the two and doing research with an interdisciplinary perspective. She draws on several years of legal practice as a pro bono legal advisor, particularly in migration and asylum law, where she gained extensive experience in the use of digital technologies to provide access to justice.

Publications