Category Archives: Announcement

Book presentation: Het Continent van de Toekomst

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On 18 September I will engage the author Daaf Borren in an interview at Boekhandel Douwes in The Hague, at 19:00, in a session open to the public. You are welcome!

Daaf Borren’s book ‘Het Continent van de Toekomst: Jongeren over Africa” explores what young (mostly educated) Africans think about their own continent, its challenges and how to resolve them. It is an energizing book that keeps the ‘Africa Rising’ discourse at a distance, and describes how many young people refuse victimhood narratives, while remaining critical about (neo)colonial patterns of domination.

One of the themes that struck me was the revival of the pan-Africanist ideal among young Africans desperate to get rid of corrupt elites held in power by Western extractive and security interests.

Banner image: part of Frantz Zéphirin 2007 – The Slave Ship Brooks as photographed at the 2022 Venice Biennial

Al Shabaab Governance – peer-reviewed paper published

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How does the insurgent Somali Islamist movement Al Shabaab govern the populations it controls, and what are the implications for Somalia and the international intervention there? This is the subject of my article published by the Canadian Journal of African Studies on 18 July 2025.

Here is the link to the final manuscript as accepted by the Journal, and following is the abstract of the paper.

Presentations and echoes

I will discuss this paper as part of the presentation on my current research at Leiden University on 24 September, in a closed session to which LU staff and students are invited.

I’m organising a seminar on this topic at the Center for International Studies of Sciences Po (CERI) in Paris in the second half of October (precise date and location to follow). The seminar will be presented and moderated by my colleague at the CERI Hélène Thiollet.

An article based on my research will soon be published by the New Humanitarian, and a shorter, more divulgative article will appear in The Conversation (African edition). The links will be placed here upon publication.

I had the pleasure to discuss this paper with Guido Lafranchi, researcher at the Clingendael Institute, and look forward to other discussions with experts!

Note: the banner image is from a 2018 map depicting areas of influence. Al Shabaab = green. Not much has changed since then.

Publication de chapitre sur l’enquête en zone de conflits

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Ensemble avec Emmanuel Al Miah et Dércio Tsandzana, j’ai écrit le premier chapitre du livre ‘Enquêter en Terrain Sensible’ (Presses du Septentrion). Le livre examine les difficultés inhérentes aux études de terrain dans les zones liminaires – soit parce qu’il y a la guerre ou d’autres types de violence, soit à cause des politiques institutionnelles d’acteurs qui sont habitués à la discrétion, soit encore à cause du positionnement du chercheur face à son objet d’enquête.

Un grand merci aux directeurs de l’ouvrage pour l’initiative qu’ils ont pris, voici il y a deux ans, et leur patience pour mener ce projet à sa fin. Les autres contributions, y compris l’introduction à la première partie du livre par Roland Marchal, sont aussi très intéressantes.

Notre chapitre décrit comment on peut faire, malgré les difficultés, des recherches dans les zones de conflit, en prenant la Somalie, l’Irak et le Mozambique comme exemples.

My dissertation co-director no longer hostage in Iran

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UPDATE: on 20 March 2020, on the eve of Nauroz, Roland Marchal was freed from prison, in exchange for the liberation of an Iranian engineer arrested in France for allegedly violating US sanctions on Iran. Although he has generally kept quiet since then, arriving in Coronavirus-confined France, he gave a moving interview to French public radio-TV on 8 April.

Fariba is still in prison (on 15 April) but apparently she’s feeling much better, not only physically but also for having been put in charge of the woman’s section of Evin Prison library, which she says ‘is not at all bad’.

Roland Marchal, probably the major French specialist on Somalia and the Horn of Africa, was taken hostage by Iran’s revolutionary guards, together with Fariba Adelkhah, another researcher belonging to the Centre de Recherches Internationales, to which I am also affiliated. Following is the text of the Fariba and Roland Support Committee, that we publish on the eve of the celebration of the Iranian revolution (11 Feb). We request the Iranian leader to free both researchers and all other prisoners in Iran who have been unjustly detained.

There is no indication that either researcher was targeted for what they wrote; Fariba has worked as a researcher in Iran for years, sometimes being harassed by security services but never imprisoned. Roland didn’t even work on Iran. They were clearly taken as hostages in the geopolitical game opposing Iran and the West.
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‘Searching for Ancient Arabia’ – further information about the research project

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A workshop will be held for all those interested in participating in this research project at the Downtown Campus (off Hamdan Street) of NYU Abu Dhabi on Tuesday 25 February, from 18:00 to 20:30.

For details about the workshop and registration see the bottom of this page.

Introduction to the research subject

Stone Altar from Marib (5th - 4th Century BC) and Bronze Statuette of the warrior Ma'dikarib, South Arabia, 6th century BC
Stone Altar from Marib (5th – 4th Century BC) and Bronze Statuette of the warrior Ma’dikarib, South Arabia (6th century BC). These and all other photos and maps/diagrams on this page are reproduced from the book “Arabia and the Arabs from the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam’ by Robert Hoyland, 2001. See below for ordering information

“Only a small proportion of the lore of the Arabs has come down to you. Had it reached you in its entirety, much scientific and literary knowledge would have been yours”

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Searching for Ancient Arabia

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I’m about to start a FIND fellowship at New York University Abu Dhabi called ‘Searching for Ancient Arabia’ and I’m looking for artists, curators, critics and scholars to participate in this research project.Ancient Arabia 1

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A Saudi Artist in Paris

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An exhibition I’m curating in Paris: it will only remain open for 2 days (Sat 28 and Sunday 29 September). Don’t miss the opening party / vernissage !

Ibrahim invitation

Ibrahim Abumsmar is an artist specializing in minimalist sculpture with a sociopolitical message. He hails from the Asir, the mountainous southwestern region of Saudi Arabia. After participating in exhibitions in Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Qatar, Italy and Istanbul, Ibrahim is now completing a two-month residency at the Cité des Arts in Paris. Continue reading →