Sam Kniknie
Sam Kniknie's research looks at urban protest in the conflict-ridden city of Goma, DRC. Building on an ethnographic approach, he studies how youth in urban peripheries engage in practices of urban political violence and how their subjectivities are moulded in an in-between space. More specifically, he focuses on how urban political youth groups mobilize local and global subjectivities, how violence is both an experience and a form of agency for these groups and how in-between spaces and identities produce riots.
New Publication: Performing political stories of the self: Subverting identities in the city of Goma, DR Congo
This article looks at how young urban activists in the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of Congo (hereafter Congo) politically appropriated performances that were initially meant as a research tool.
Understanding urban protest in a context of war: an ethnographic analysis of ‘urban political terrains’ in eastern DRC
This PhD project looks at the nexus of violence, conflict, and urban protest in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.
New Publication: Rebellious riots: entangled geographies of contention in Africa
Is violent conflict in Africa urbanizing? How do urban protests and civil war intersect? How do narratives, mechanisms and identities of contention move between urban and rural arenas?
Current research projects:
Understanding urban protest in a context of war: an ethnographic analysis of ‘urban political terrains’ in eastern DRC
This PhD project looks at the nexus of violence, conflict, and urban protest in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.