Talks etc.

2021

  • July: European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), panel ‘Emotionally Engaged: Reflecting Upon Researchers’ Positionality.’ Paper: Subject To Investigation: Reviewing a Decade of Field Research in “Difficult Environments”.
  • June: German African Studies Association (VAD), panel ‘Lifeworlds in Crisis: Challenging notions of Difference.’ Paper: #CARCRISIS, How one hashtag obscures shifting crises in the Central African Republic
  • February: Africa Knows! Conference, panel ‘Bridging the gap between policy and research’. Paper: African border policies: how local sensitivities and global security discourses converge into increased securitization of African borders.
  • January: CSDS Conference on Sustainable Development Goal #4. Panel organisation “Decolonizing International Development Studies: Shifting Hierarchies“.

2019

  • December: European Union Institute for Security Studies, Paris. Workshop on “Local Governance in Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding.”
  • November: Conference on the Central African Republic, Université Paris 1, Panthéon Sorbonne, Social Dynamics in Civil Wars research project. Paper: Navigating exclusion: the Mbororo confronted with conflicts in the CAR and beyond
  • October: PACSA (Peace and Conflict Studies in Anthropology Network) Conference in Belfast. Paper: At the margins of peace: Reflections from the borderlands of South Sudan and the Central African Republic
  • June: ECAS (African studies) Conference, Edinburgh. Roundtable: Secessionism in African Politics.
  • June: ECAS (African studies) Conference, Edinburgh. Paper: Reinforcing fault lines? Turmoil and responses in the Central African Republic
  • May: Talk at NEDWORc event on Fragile States, Utrecht, Netherlands.
  • May: Talk at the Police Academy in Apeldoorn, Netherlands.
  • February: Talk at Université Paris 1, Panthéon Sorbonne, Social Dynamics in Civil Wars research project. Reinforcing Fault lines? Good intentions in the Central African Republic.

2018

  • November: Point Sud program in Libreville, Gabon. Convenor of the workshop “The Legacies of Violence in French Equatorial Africa.”
  • October: Workshop Conflict, Authority and Resources in Wider Central Africa. University of Zurich.

2017

  • November: Point Sud program in LASDEL, Niamey, Niger. Paper: Barriers as Bridges: how local sensitivities and global security discourses converge and increase securitization of borderlands in Africa.
  • November: Organisation of the workshop Conserving nature in violent and militarized environments at Sheffield University, together with Esther Marijnen and BIOSEC program.
  • October: Talk at CIRAM, Université Laval, Quebec. “Les Ruptures Remises en Question. Les développements courte-durées versus la trajectoire longue-durée dans la crise de la République Centrafricaine.”
  • October: Talk at Université de Quebec à Montreal. “Comparing local security dynamics in the Central African Republic and South Sudan. How different cases fail to fit a country’s dominant conflict narrative.” Workshop on “The Politics of Comparing Armed Conflicts.”
  • June: ECAS (African Studies) conference, Basel. Panel organisation with Tim Glawion: Between Rural and Urban: Building the state in secondary towns.
  • June: ECAS (African Studies) conference, Basel. Roundtable: Strategic Essentialism? The Patrick Chabal Debate
  • June: ECAS (African Studies) conference, Basel. Paper: “We need our soldiers to protect our borders”: Understanding Popular Expectations of the State in the Central African Republic. 
  • April : Talk at All Souls College, Oxford. Paper: “Discontinuities Disrupted. Why rebellions, politics and interventions reinforce old patterns of governance in the Central African Republic” (with Tim Glawion). Workshop on “Illegalism, violence and state avoidance in Chad, Libya and the Central African Republic”.
  • March: Talk at the BICC, Bonn. Paper: “Claiming land, reclaiming identity. Land tenure insecurity and reform in situations of protracted displacement” (with Mathijs van Leeuwen).
  • February: Talk at the DIIS, Copenhagen. Paper: “Navigating Marginality. The Mbororo Peulh in the Central African Republic“

2016

  • December: Point Sud Program, Bamako, Mali. Paper: Naviguer la marginalité: Les Mbororo Peulh en République Centrafrique.
  • October: Lecture on Fragile States and Conflict for the Clingendael Institute ‘International Security’ training.
  • June: Talk at the Arnold Bergstraesser Institute, Freiburg. Paper: The three most fragile? Differing Security Dynamics in South Sudan, the Central African Republic and Somalia (with Tim Glawion).
  • April: ABORNE workshop, Beuggen, Germany. Paper: Ambition, power, rumours, and death: The Arrow Boys attack on Obo and the many faces of cross-border armed conflict (with Mareike Schomerus).
  • March: International Studies Association Convention, Atlanta, USA. Paper: Governing the rear bases: State and non-state security interferences in Raja County, South Sudan.
  • February: Bangui University, Central African Republic. Presentation of research finding for staff and MA students at the Anthropology Department.
  • January: Participant in writing workshop “Considerations about the 28 States of South Sudan: A handbook for thought” organized by the Oversees Development Institute and the Chr. Michelson Institute at Reading University.

2015

  • October: Workshop at the “Africa Conference”, organized by the Netherlands Defence Intelligence and Security Service.
  • October: Focus theatre Arnhem, discussant at Movies that Matter on Tour – We Come As Friends – South Sudan.
  • October: Lecture on Fragile States and Conflict for the Clingendael Institute ‘International Security’ training.
  • October: LUX theatre Nijmegen, discussant at Movies that Matter on Tour – We Come As Friends – South Sudan.
  • July: ECAS (African Studies) conference, Paris; Paper: “A Peaceful Rear Base for War and State Making in Sudan and South Sudan: The Case of Raja County”.
  • July: ECAS (African Studies) conference, Paris; Panel organization with Prof. Dr. Andreas Mehler: “Is Regional Engagement Driving Security? Insights from the Horn and Central Africa”.
  • June: SFB700 workshop on Transnational Clientelism, Berlin. Paper with Tim Glawion: “Anchoring the Mission: External military interventions and local embedding in South Sudan and the Central African Republic”.
  • June: Lecture on Fragile States and Conflict for the Clingendael Institute ‘International Security’ training.
  • June: Keynote on South Sudan at an internal strategic planning meeting at the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
  • May: Guest lecture at the Research Master in African Studies at the African Studies Centre, Leiden.
  • March: Bangui University, Central African Republic. Presentation with Tim Glawion: Les défis de la stabilité et de la sécurité dans les provinces Centrafricaines et Sud-Soudanaises.

2014

  • December: Conference on Justice in the Sudans, Durham University.
  • October: ESF Conference on the Epistemology of Borders at Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona. Paper: “Porous statehood at the border: Exploring order, authority and informality in the borderlands of South Sudan, DR Congo, and Uganda”.
  • September: Lecture on Fragile States and Conflict for the Clingendael Institute ‘International Security’ trainings.
  • August: Preparatory acculturation training on South Sudan for Netherlands Royal Police, commissioned by KIT Intercultural professionals.
  • June: Association of Borderlands Studies Conference in Juunsu (Finland) and Saint Petersburg. Paper with Dr. Mareike Schomerus: “Improvising border security; ‘A situation of security pluralism along South Sudan’s borders with DR Congo”.
  • May: ‘Negotiating Borders; Defining South Sudan’. Book launch at the LSE Justice and Security Research Programme.
  • March: Guest lecture at Leiden University, the Hague Campus BA International Studies.
  • January: Discussant at Connecting in Times of Duress seminar series, Leiden University. Paper by Dr. Louisa Lombard on the Central African Republic.
  • January: Participant in the CICAM Roundtable with Prof. Dr. William Reno, Dr. Lee Seymour and Dr. Romain Malejacq on state-building, warlord politics and intervention.

2013

  • October: Humanitarian Studies Conference, Istanbul. Organization of panel ‘state-building from below’. Paper with Dr. Mareike Schomerus: “Navigating South Sudan’s perceptions of marginalisation and ethnicity in public authority presentation of paper”.
  • September: DIIS conference on the political economy of peace and conflict in South Sudan. Copenhagen, Denmark. Paper presentation.
  • June: ECAS (African studies) conference in Lisbon. Paper: “Ambiguous development: “Food for all” and the agricultural sector in South Sudan”.
  • May: Guest Lecture at Gent University; Course entitled “Processes of Conflict and Development”.
  • May: Talk. “Subject to investigation”. Seminar series Methods and Ethics of the Conflict Research Group, Gent University.
  • March: Lecture on “démocratie et bonne gouvernance” for the Clingendael Institute course for participants from the Great Lakes Region.
  • March: CERES PhD training school. Lecture; Fieldwork in hazardous situations.
  • January: Durham University South Sudan Symposium; panel discussion on South Sudan’s borders.
  • January: ABORNE winter school, Saint Louis, Senegal. Paper presentation: ‘Subject to Investigation: Reflections on studying the state at South Sudan’s borders with Congo and Uganda’.

2012

  • November: African Studies Association in Philadelphia. Paper: “Remnants of old repertoires: the practice of power in transition in South Sudan’s border triangle with Congo and Uganda.”
  • March: Talk at University of Zurich, Department of Political Geography. Presentation on Ph.D. research.