Biography
I completed my ESRC-funded PhD in Social Anthropology at Sussex in 2016. Previously I completed an MSc in Cross-Cultural Research Methods at Sussex (2010), an MA in Gender and International Development at IDS (2007), and a BA in Human Sciences at the University of Oxford (2006). I have also worked for over a decade with research and education-related NGOs in London, Brussels, Senegal and the Comores archipelago in East Africa. Following these experiences, I was attracted more and more by the potential of social anthropology to critically appraise development practice.
Role
I am affiliated to Sussex as a Postdoctoral Associate in Global Studies. I am a member of the Sussex Africa Centre, the Centre for Cultures of Reproduction, Technologies and Health (CORTH) and the Centre for Innovation and Research in Childhood and Youth (CIRCY). I am currently employed as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Laboratoire d’Anthropologie des Mondes Contemporains (LAMC) at l'Université Libre de Bruxelles. I will also hold an UCSIA Visiting Fellowship at the Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies (CeMIS) at the University of Antwerp from October-November 2017.
Qualifications
- PhD Social Anthropology - University of Sussex, January 2016
- MSc Comparative and Cross Cultural Research Methods, University of Sussex, 2009 – 2010, distinction
- MA Gender and International Development, Institute of Development Studies, 2006 – 2007, distinction
- BA Human Sciences, University of Oxford, 2003 – 2006, 1st class
Activities
I am currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratoire d'Anthropologie des Mondes Contemporains (LAMC) at the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) funded by the Fonds National de Recherche Scientifique (FNRS) to investigate Qur'anic school reform in Senegal (2018-2021). I also benefitted from a mobility postdoc at the ULB (2017-2018) and a visiting fellowship at the Centre for Migration and Intercultural Studies (CeMIS) at the University of Antwerp (2017). I co-coordinate the LAMC's Anthropologie à Bruxelles / Brussels Anthropology (ABBA) seminar series.
I sit on the bureau of the Association pour l'anthropologie du changement social et du développement (APAD) and the editorial board of their journal Anthropologie & développement. I served as Secretary of the British Association for International and Comparative Education (BAICE) from 2015-2018 and I am a member of the Africa Studies Association of the UK (ASAUK), the Development Studies Association (DSA) and l'Association de Recherche sur l'Education et les Savoirs (ARES).
I work in an ongoing capacity as research consultant with action-research NGO The Grandmother Project (GMP) in southern Senegal. I have been involved in documenting the success of their participatory intergenerational dialogue approach to improve relations between elders and youth; improve the health and well-being of female children and adolescents; and integrate cultural values and indigenous knowledge into primary school teaching. I have provided technical support to the USAID-funded Passages Project on adolescent sexual and reproductive health based at the Institute of Reproductive Health at Georgetown University, which has identified GMP as a case of best practice in the field of social norm change in relation to adolescent health, and have worked with advocacy organisation 28TooMany to document GMP's cultural renewal approach to shifting attitudes and behaviours surrounding FGM/C.
From 2013-2015 I was affiliated to the project Modèles, pratiques et cultures scolaires en Afrique de l'Ouest Francophone coordinated from the Les Afriques dans le Monde Africa Studies Centre at SciencesPo Bordeaux, where I spent 6 weeks during November-December 2013 thanks to an ESRC Overseas Insitutional Visit scholarship. I was a member of the scientific committee for their conference Governing Schools in the Global South: Policies, Actors and Practices held in Bordeaux, February 2015.
I have been involved in the organisation of several events and seminar series at the University of Sussex including the NGender: Gender & Sexuality Research Seminar Series, the Global Studies PhD Lecture Series, and a Development Studies conference on the theme of "Critical Debates With(In) Development: Power, Resilience and Change" hosted in 2013.
I blog in English and French for the Huffington Post and The Conversation.