Bruno De Cordier is Associate Professor and Deputy Head of Department at the Department of Conflict and Development Studies at the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences of Ghent University (Universiteit Gent). He teaches Humanitarian Policy there and has previously been an international relief worker for various relief organisations for almost ten years, the bulk in deploymnet in areas of the former Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union. De Cordier also has a course in the social history of Central Asia and the world of the steppe, which extents ultimately to the Pontic-Caspian steppe in eastern Europe. He is particularly interested in the extents and ways in which past histories continue to be reflected in present realities and identities, and in ways is which history can inspire ways to deal with the turbulent present and -future. One of De Cordier’s latest feats is the co-authoring and editing of the 1,100-something page ‘The European handbook of Central Asian studies: history, politics, societies’ which was published in autumn 2021 with ibidem Verlag.
