Citizenship, migration, and belonging in the Horn of Africa
I study how citizens engage with states, and experience, contest, and create the content of citizenship in meaningful ways. My work is grounded in long-term fieldwork across Ethiopia, Kenya, Djibouti, and beyond.
Citizenship & national identity
Battles over the right to have rights, and how they are exercised everyday, are pivotal across the world. My first book, Making Citizens in Africa (Cambridge, 2013), reveals the everyday activities of being a citizen by tracing ethnicity, gender, and national identity in Ethiopia. I call it ‘meaningful citizenship,’ going beyond the formality of documents that states provide or deny.
Migration & escape
I study the mobility of all people in East Africa. This involves not just using but challenging the various labels, policies, and practices that have emerged around people on the move — from legal to irregular or undocumented migrants, refugees, internally displaced persons, and transit migrants. My upcoming book, Refugees without Refuge, co-authored with Lauren Carruth and illustrated by Moussa Ali Miguil, draws on research in Djibouti to explore the role of humanitarians and helpers in the context of a broken asylum and protection system in the modern era.
Education and the creation of citizens
I have ongoing research on civic education in Kenya, focused on teachers as active agents of citizen-creation. Closer to home, I work to widen who gets to do research, mentoring students and building pathways into advanced study and evidence-based impact in political science.