School of Social and Political Science

Description

The Centre of African Studies (CAS) is delighted to welcome you to the following seminar:

Radical wars in the Sahel, the digital internationalization and participation in warfare

Speaker: Professor Mirjam de Bruijn, Professor in Contemporary History and Anthropology, Leiden University

Chair: Dr Thomas (Tom) Molony, Senior Lecturer in African Studies, CAS, University of Edinburgh

Based on long term ethnographic fieldwork and an engagement with methods from the digital humanities this talk will present on-going research on the conflicts in the Sahel. The conflict that started in North Mali in 2012, has become a regional war, will be the focus of the talk. Ethnic, religious polarization is exacerbated in the digital sphere. But also international relations are discussed in the digital. In this talk examples of such digitally guided discussions are analyzed in their effects on the way the war is developing both on the ground, with many citizen victims, and in its geopolitical directions. The digital environment introduces political and social dynamics that are crucial to understand the violent condition that is the outcome of a dialectical relationship between society online and society offline.

When: Wednesday 7th February 2024 (3.30-5pm GMT)

Where: Hugh Robson Building, Lecture  Theatre G.04

Format: In person. To attend this event, please register on Eventbrite.

Speaker Biography:

Mirjam de Bruijn is Professor in ‘Contemporary History and Anthropology of Africa’ at Leiden University and the African studies Centre Leiden (ASCL). Her specific fields of interest are: mobility, youth, social (in)security, marginality/exclusion, human rights, Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs).She received several grants for research programmes on these topics. Her latest project is DDMAC: Decoding Digital Media in African Conflicts. It was funded by the Norwegian Research Council. In 2016 she founded the organisation Voice4thought (www.Voice4Thought.org). Mirjam teaches ‘innovative methods’ and ‘Media and Power’ in the programmes African Studies and History of Leiden University. She is chair of the BA programme African Studies at Leiden University.