Meet the Team
Principal Investigator
University of Glasgow
Stephanie Perazzone is Doctor in International Relations and Political Science. Currently Lecturer in International Development at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Glasgow. ​With affiliations to Geneva and Copenhagen, she is the lead researcher on the Unruly four-year SNSF research project hosted at the Global Studies Institute, University of Geneva.
An expert in African politics and, in particular, of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), her work has focused on linking the anthropology and the global politics of the postcolonial state in urban environments. She is also developing a research agenda that seeks to introduce the notion of the ‘ordinary’ as a critical theoretical device in IR theory, analyses the politics of international intervention in (post-) conflict environments, explores the challenges of qualitative research methods in social sciences, and examines issues of ‘coloniality’ and imperial durabilities in global politics.
PhD Candidate
University of Geneva
Aline Nanko Samaké is a PhD candidate in the SNF-funded project "'Unruly' Spaces". ​​In her doctoral research in political science, reflection begins where the quest for a planned urban order 'from above' ends by interrogating the city and political power through the urban experiences of individuals and communities marginalised because of their gender expression and/or sexual orientation in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.
An advocate for research rooted in real life, she firmly believes in the transformational power that stems from closer ties between activists, artists, development stakeholders and researchers. Aline Nanko Samaké is also the president of Equipop's board of directors, an international solidarity organization focused on sexual and reproductive rights and health.
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Project Partner
University of Geneva
Didier Péclard is Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science and International Relations and Director of the Master of Arts in African Studies at the Global Studies Institute of the University of Geneva. He obtained his PhD from Sciences-Po Paris in 2005. He was a lecturer at the University of Basel and directed the 'Statehood and Conflict' programme at swisspeace. A visiting professor at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2012-2013), he was co-editor of the journal Politique africaine between 2013 and 2018.
His research focuses on the dynamics of state formation in sub-Saharan Africa with two main axes: the study of civil wars as a matrix of state formation and the role of the state in development policies.
Project Partner
University of Geneva
Armelle Choplin is Associate Professor at the Departement of Geography and Environment (Geneva School of Social Sciences) and at the Global Studies Institute since 2019. Previously, she was senior lecturer at the Paris-Est University and Paris School of Urban Planning. From 2016 to 2018, she was researcher at the French Research center for Sustainable Development, based in West Africa.
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Her research focuses on urban planning, everyday life governance, housing, poverty, sustainable development, digital innovation, and globalization in African cities and in the Global South.
Project Partner
University Alassane Ouattara
Ousmane Zina is a senior lecturer in political science at the Alassane Ouattara University of Bouaké (UAO) in Côte d'Ivoire (Faculty of Law, Department of Political Science). He is Head of the Department of Political Science and Director of the Laboratory of African and Comparative Political Studies (LEPAC-UAO).
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Ousmane Zina is also an associate researcher at the UNESCO Chair in Bioethics at the Alassane Ouattara University in Bouaké. He was a post-doc researcher in collaboration with the University of Geneva on the programme: "Civil War and State Formation in Africa". In 2021, he joined the editorial board of the journal "Politique africaine". In 2022, he was selected as a guest lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne.
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His research focuses on the processes of democratisation and state formation in Africa, on post-crisis, transitional justice and post-conflict reconstruction, on conflict, peace, security, development etc...
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Project Partner
Catholic University of Congo
Albert Malukisa Nkuku is a professor at the Catholic University of Congo where he is currently Dean of the Faculty of Political Science.
From 2017 to 2018, he evolved at the University of Antwerp/Belgium as a Postdoc Researcher for issues related to urban governance in Kinshasa, with the 'Secure Livelihoods Research Consortium' program in the Democratic Republic of Congo, focusing on public services in this country. After this program, he became an associate researcher at the University of Antwerp and currently works as a researcher also at the New York University Congo Study Group and at the Ebuteli Institute, partner of the first organization that conducts research in the DRC on governance, politics and violent conflict.
In recent years, his area of research has focused on national and local governance, corruption, the informal economy and institutional reforms.
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Project Partner
Copenhagen University
Kasper’s research focuses on three main issues: The formation of political identities, the production of political authority and territory, and emerging forms of governance in conflict settings. Specifically, Kasper focuses on the intersection between the formation of ethnic identities and processes of territorialisation and on emerging forms of rebel and land governance in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar.
Kasper is part of three research projects. He is an investigator on the research project: “Peacebuilding, Public Authority, and Forests in Myanmar” funded by the Danida Fellowship Centre, which aims to understand how authority is produced through the governance of land, natural resources, and people in areas of prolonged armed conflict and contested statehood through a case-study of Myanmar. Furthermore, he is part of the “Centre for Public Authority”; a large research programme hosted by the LSE, which is funded by the UK’s Economic Social Research Council.
Lastly, Kasper is part of the research project “Hidden Urbanisation”, which sets out to investigate hidden forms of urbanity in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in order to achieve a better understanding of the profoundly political character of rapid urbanisation in Sub-Saharan Africa funded by the FWO.
Project Partner
Ghent University
Karen Büscher is Assistant Professor at the Conflict Research Group at Ghent University in Belgium.
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Karen Büscher's area of research interest is the relationship between violent conflict and urbanization in Eastern D.R. Congo. More specifically she focuses on urban governance in civil war, humanitarian urbanism, urban impacts of forced displacement and rural-urban transformation.
Project Partner
Geneva Graduate Institute
Dennis Rodgers is a Research professor in anthropology and sociology at Geneva Graduate Institute. His research focuses on issues relating to the dynamics of conflict and violence in cities in Latin America (Nicaragua, Argentina) and South Asia (India). Much of his work involves the longitudinal study of youth gangs in Nicaragua but he also works on the political economy of development, the politics of socio-spatial segregation, participatory governance processes, the historiography of urban theory, and the epistemology of development knowledge.
In 2018 he was awarded a five-year European Research Council Advanced Grant for a project on “Gangs, Gangsters, and Ganglands: Towards a Comparative Global Ethnography” (GANGS), which aims to systematically compare gang dynamics in Nicaragua, South Africa and France.
Research Assistant
Davina Isabelle Bika
Catholic University of Congo
Davina Isabelle Bika is a Master II student in Political Science at the Université Catholique du Congo (UCC) in Kinshasa, majoring in Governance. She holds a bachelor's degree in political science and a state diploma in general education.
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Her first scientific thesis was on the role of the state in education as a lever for the development of Congolese society. Her current research focuses on the survival strategies of civil servants in the DRC (Kinshasa).
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She is also interested in women's leadership, gender, parity and positive masculinity. As such, she has been awarded two certificates of merit by the dynamic women/UCC structure for her leadership and dynamism.
Research Assistant
Ben Michel Mbumba
Catholic University of Congo
Ben Michel Mbumba holds a master's degree in political science, specializing in governance, from the Catholic University of Congo. ​He is currently enrolled in a doctoral program in political science at the Catholic University of Congo. His research project focuses on the proliferation of political parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
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As a researcher, his work centers on political parties and elections. He is the author of several scientific publications, including "The Evolution and Regulation of Political Parties in the DRC: Under the Third Republic" (European University Editions). Currently, he serves as a reviewer of scientific articles for the publishing house Open Journal of Political Science. He also teaches courses in Political Communication, Social Organization and Legislation, Corporate Governance and Social Responsibility, and Project Evaluation at the Don Akam Christian Catholic University.
Research Assistant
Anzan F. Kouakou
University of Bouaké
Anzan F. Kouakou is a Ph.D candidate in political science at Université Alassane Ouattara of Bouaké. He is interested in development policies in Africa. His doctoral research, directed by Professor Ousmane Zina, focuses on social protection dynamics in subsaharian Africa. In particular the issue of cash transfers as the mainstay of poverty reduction policy in Côte d'Ivoire.
Research Assistant
Guy-Serge Bilé
University of Bouaké
Guy-Serge Bilé is a PhD student in Political Science at the Université Alassane Ouattara (Bouaké - Côte d'Ivoire). Under the supervision of Professor Ousmane ZINA, he is writing a thesis on the relationship between democracy and the village in sub-Saharan Africa, based on the case of Côte d'Ivoire.
He is currently the President of the "Club Science Po UAO", which federates and organises the political science student community at the Université Alassane Ouattara.
He is interested in issues relating to the political communication sociology, electoral sociology, public and political marketing, youth and women's leadership, political participation and so on.