Meet the Team
Principal Investigator
University of Geneva
Stephanie Perazzone is a doctor in International Relations and Political Science. Currently based in Geneva and Copenhagen she is lead researcher on a four-year SNSF research project entitled 'Unruly Spaces: Public Space, Society and Politics in Urban Africa’ 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: Public Space, Society and Politics in Urban Africa" directed by Dr. Stéphanie Perazzone. She is interested in the issue of sexuality in public spaces in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Her doctoral research in political science questions the practices, representations and organisations relating to economic-erotic and sexual exchanges that participate in (re)defining the urban public spaces of Abidjan and Kinshasa. Using a methodology that mixes tools from political sociology and anthropology, her work is inspired by decolonial, queer and feminist approaches.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.