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Publications

New Special Issue: Locating sand

This special issue in the Extractive Industries and Society organised together with Melissa Marschke and Jean-François Rousseau aims to provide a jumping-off point towards both empirically and conceptually sophisticated work on sand.

New Publication: Why time matters for understanding the ASM-LSM nexus in south-eastern Democratic Republic of Congo

This article advocates an approach which pays more attention to issues of time and temporality in places where large-scale forms of mineral extraction clash with small-scale ones.

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.

New Book Review of James Smith’s The Eyes of the World

As an anthropologist, James Smith distinguishes himself from fellow scholars in development studies and political science by striving for a genuinely emic understanding of how various transparancy initiatives have been experienced and given meaning to at the grassroots level by those working and living in and around 3T mines.

New Publication: Armed groups, territorial control, land disputes, and gold exploitation in Djugu, Ituri, Democratic Republic of Congo

This report investigates the link between the exploitation of gold in Djugu territory and the current conflict. It addresses the question of whether the current conflicts in Ituri province result from competition over mineral resources, or is the presence of gold mines rather an opportunity to finance war efforts?

New Publication: What water will the UN Conference carry forward: a fundamental human right or a commodity?

In March, 2023, the first UN Global Conference on water in 46 years attracted 7000 people in New York (NY, USA). However, long-standing rifts over how to best manage access to water and govern water resources were revived, revealing a confrontation of different political and economic views.

New Publication: Sand urbanism in Bangladesh: Transitions of sand extraction and trade in Dhaka-Narayanganj

Sand is shaping and has shaped urban development in many parts of the world. Developing the concept of sand urbanism, this paper aims to understand the recursive constitution of sand extraction and urbanity.

New Publication: Governing through decay? The workings of a transnational Congo

A federal organization of the Congolese state remains a political impossibility whose mere shadow invokes nationalist backlash often framed in the language of “balkanization

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?