CISSR welcomes 2023-24 AFIDEP research fellows Eugene Arnaud Yombo Sembe, Mziwandile Ndlovu, and Nurudeen Alhassan
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The collaboration between the African Institute for Development Policy (AFIDEP) – a prominent pan-African research entity with operational hubs in Lilongwe, Malawi and Nairobi, Kenya – and CISSR has officially begun with the arrival of 2023-24 AFIDEP research fellows Nurudeen Alhassan, Mziwandile Ndlovu, and Eugene Arnaud Yombo Sembe.
Supported by UChicago’s Global Provost for sub-Saharan Africa Grants and CISSR, the program seeks to foster interdisciplinary collaboration among scholars working in the social sciences, bringing together diverse perspectives and expertise.
Dr. Yombo Sembe's father ensured he was excited by politics from a young age by buying him newspapers and discussing politics around the world, and this paid off in his current endeavors. Sembe pursued a PhD in Cape Town and a postdoc in Political Science and International Relations before joining AFIDEP. He specializes in Francophone Africa, analyzing indicators from a decolonial perspective. He seeks to incorporate the African perspective and context into the index and collected data. Sembe’s research focuses on authoritarian renewal and how it persists despite democratic propaganda, investigating the old methods employed to maintain power and preserve authoritarian tools within a democratic framework.
Dr. Mziwandile Ndlovu received his doctorate in Governance and Regional Integration from PAU-GHSS in Cameroon. He has also been passionate about politics from a young age, and has channeled this into his work on the project management team examining African integrity indicators of governance across all 54 countries. Ndlovu is investigating why the top 10 performing countries on gender indicators in Africa come from very different types of regimes. He poses the question; with so little in common, aside from a comparatively high level of female representatives, what could motivate their high performance? Ndlovu is excited about the opportunity to dedicate time to exploring this topic and welcomes the chance to participate in a fellowship that includes a significant writing retreat component.
Demographer Nurudeen Alhassan, who received his PhD in Population Studies from the University of Ghana, entered the field after a background in social work. Early in his academic career, Alhassan recognized that the demographic perspective on women and children primarily revolved around reproduction and gender norms. Literature indicated that young girls and women in impoverished urban areas exhibit lower rates of negotiation in terms of safe sex due to a lack of urban policies that empower them in negotiations. Many researchers have delved into why this is the case, but Alhassan sought solutions for these groups by studying those who displayed positive deviance from this behavior. Alhassan's focus in his current research lies in analyzing data from four African countries, examining the use of different contraceptive methods, with an emphasis on traditional methods prevalent in urban areas. He aims to understand why educationally affluent women in these regions eschew new technology to depend on traditional methods, contrary to expectations.
Alhassan, Ndlovu, and Sembe look forward to expanding their academic network during their time at the university, having already enjoyed attending events such as Rochelle Terman's book launch. Additionally, they are excited about the vibrant nightlife and opportunities for cultural and sporting events, as well as the chance to connect with established groups on campus throughout the coming month.
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April 23
Social Science Research Center
3- 4pm, David Rubenstein Forum Friedman Hall
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Seminary Co-op Bookstore and Martin Marty Center
6pm, Seminary Co-op
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April 25
Seminary Co-op
6pm, 57th St Books
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April 26
CISSR/Chicago Center on Democracy
12:30 pm, Pick 105
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April 26-27
Center for the Study of Communication and Society
8:45 am, Franke Institute for the Humanities
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April 29
5:30 pm, Seminary Co-op
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April 30
University of Chicago
5 pm Social Science Research, Room 122
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May 2
Seminary Co-op
6pm, Seminary Co-op
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May 6
Seminary Co-op
6pm Seminary Co-op
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May 7
Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation
12:30-1:30pm. 1155 Room 101, Hybrid
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CEAS, Seminary Co-op Bookstores
5p, Seminary Co-op
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Around Town and Down the Road |
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May 2
Northwestern University
12:30-2pm, Parkes Hall
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May 2
University of Illinois
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"Immigrant Integration, Exclusion, or Accommodation? Ethnographic Observations from the Rural Midwest"
12:00 p.m. (CST) Thursday, May 2, 2024
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Politics, History and Society Workshop
5-6:20 pm, in SSRB 305
May 2: "Adapting to Climate Change: Institutional Influences on Local Choices to Address Sea Level Rise" Betsy Priem,
PhD Candidate, UChicago Sociology
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4-5:30 SSRB 302
April 25: Read My Lips, No New Avanias: A Microhistory of an Armenian Customa Collector in 17th Century Aleppo
Theo Knight
UChicago NELC
May 2: Prof, Ghenwa Hayek
UChicago NELC
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5:00 to 6:20pm, Virtual
April 23rd: Sex, Gender, & Publishing with Joshua Chambers-Letson, an editor of the Sexual Cultures Series at NYU Press, Join us in person @ The Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, 5733 S. University Ave.
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East Asia: Transregional Histories
Regular Schedule 4:00 to 5:30pm, John Hope Franklin Room, SSRB
April 25: 3:20-4:50 PM: You Wang
Harper-Schmidt Fellow, Society of Fellows and Collegiate Assistant Professor, Social Sciences Division
Paper title: Being East to the Great Lake: a Work Relief and a Official-Gentry-Laborer Play in the Early Nineteenth-Century China
Discussant: TBD
Location: TBD
May 1: 4:00 to 5:30pm: Dr. Hiromi Mizuno** Associate Professor of History, University of Minnesota
Paper title: TBD
Discussant: TBD
Location: TBD
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12- 1pm, Pick 506
May 6: Simona Forti
Professor of Philosophy
Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy “What are we talking about when we talk about totalitarianism today?”
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Workshop on International Politics
3:30 – 5:00 p.m. in person (Pick 506) and via Zoom (password 208212)
April 25: DANIELLE GILBERT Northwestern University
“Partners in Crime: Comparative Advantage and Kidnapping Cooperation”
May 2: KYURI PARK University William and Mary
“The Autonomy-Loyalty Dilemma of Junior Allies: The Case of South Korea in the USROK Alliance”
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Wednesdays, 12:30-2:00 pm. Pick 105
April 24: Boone Ayala
PhD Candidate, University of Chicago, History
"A Scourge for Our Miscarriages: Local Support for the London Quo Warranto, 1681-1683"
May 1: Hannah Marcus
John and Ruth Hazel Associate Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University, History of Science
TBD
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5:30-7:00pm,
April 30: The LaSalle Banks Room at the Oriental Institute
“Sovereign Spaces: Black Place-Making in Colonial Brazil”
Miguel Valerio (Professor of Spanish and Afro-Latin American Studies, Washington University in St. Louis)
Sponsored by the African Studies Workshop
May 2: 5:00-6:30pm, Pick 118 “Segismundo Despierto: La vida es sueño in the Chilean Imaginary, 1973-2023″ Leora Baum (PhD Candidate in RLL)
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"Japanese Imperialism through Road Construction: New Article from Assistant Professor Yuting Dong |
Yuting Dong, assistant professor of East Asian History and 24-25 CISSR Faculty Fellow, explores imperialism through infrastructure in "Flagstone Empire: Materiality and Technical Expertise in Japanese Road Construction in Northeast China (1905-1945). The article, featured in Modern Asian Studies by Cambridge University Press, meticulously scrutinizes Japanese imperialism in northeast China during two pivotal periods: the railway auxiliary zone (1906–1932) and the broader scope of Manchuria (1932–1945), with a specific focus on road construction infrastructure projects. The research illuminates how Japanese engineers assimilated local practices and knowledge to bolster their technical acumen, albeit often at the expense of exploiting and marginalizing indigenous craftsmanship. Contrary to conventional narratives of top-down imperialism, these projects emerge as intricate amalgamations of technical proficiency and indigenous insight. Road construction emerges as a strategic instrument for Japan to extend its political and economic influence in northeast China, consolidate territorial control, and enforce compliance with Japanese policies. The choice of materials—such as gravel, granite flagstone, and concrete—serves as a testament to the complex interplay between Japanese imperial agents and local environments. Read the article here.
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Assistant Professor Natacha Nsabimana explores the Temporality of Genocide and Racial Victimization
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Natacha Nsabimana, assistant professor of Anthropology and 18-20 CISSR Faculty Fellow, examined the post-genocide reckoning in Rwanda. Nsabimana constructs her narrative around two main concepts: temporality of genocide and racial victimization on both sides. Nsabimana argues that the Gacaca courts that served as apparatuses of transitional justice and tried the lower-level perpetrators of the genocide operate on two conflicting assumptions: that an almost coercive conciliation is needed to ensure a peaceful past, and the genocide is bound to repeat because it is based on racial schisms going back to precolonial times. Thus, genocide attains a temporality that is both attempted to be contained to the past and is assumed to to omnipresent in the consciousness and the political reality of the country. Within that logic, the perennially of ethnicity as a concept and identity component is expected to sustain the threat of recurrence of political violence. This expectation and fear of recurrence exists in both sides but propelled by differing assumptions: while Hutus accuse the government of securitization of an entire ethnicity through transitional justice practices, Tutsis attribute less credit to the narratives of repentance incentivized by the Gacaca courts through sentence reductions and pardons.
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"Efendilik: Civility, Urbanity, and Homohistoricism in Contentious Istanbul"
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19-20 CISSR dissertation fellow Onursal Erol examines contrasting retrospective imaginaries of heteronormative and LGBTQ+ political discourse spaces in Turkey. Relying on field notes collected from the forums during the 2013 Gezi Park protests, Erol’s narrative traces the perception of the Ottoman and early Republican past by two different communities of dissidents that were present in the protests. Erol argues that although the generic or Kemalist voices within the Gezi protests conceptualized the past, the homo-historicist accounts produced by the LGBTQ+ protesters focused more on the Ottoman cosmopolitanism and hence attributed a more positive, yet somehow imaginary, quality to it. Being a more internally diverse group, the LGBTQ+ community seems to have looked for the roots of their shared space in a multi-ethnic and polylingual Ottoman social sphere while ignoring the political contention and violence intrinsic to that cosmopolitan dynamic. Erol notes that against the sterilizing, standardizing, and at times dismissive historicism of the Kemalist imaginary, the queer community, instead of refusing this historicism altogether, constructs a homo-historicism that is also selective and morphed. For example, Erol shows that Zeki Müren, a highly esteemed musician who is the symbol of queer identity in Turkey, was widely used in the signs and brochures LGBTQ+ organizations used during the protests despite Müren’s apolitical stance. Overall, Erol’s account presents an interesting example of the fluidity of retrospective reconstruction and is worth a closer read.
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Professor Carolina López-Ruiz on the Phoenician Past of the Mediterranean
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Carolina López-Ruiz, professor in the Divinity School and Classic Department and 24-25 CISSR Faculty Fellow, looks at the Phoenician past of the Mediterranean in her newly published book: Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean. Published by Harvard University Press, Dr. López-Ruiz’ account looks at the pre-Hellenic Mediterranean and challenges the Hellenic-centric recounting of the geography’s past. A very sophisticated civilization with a rich culture, lively trade, artistic production, and a functioning social order, Phoenicians seem to have laid the groundwork for the subsequent cultures in the region to thrive and advance. In her book, Dr. López-Ruiz looks at the deities, rituals, and everyday practices that inspired the incoming or cohabiting cultures in the region and sheds light on a culture whose contribution to world civilizations and sculpting impact on the geography it inhabited are often overlooked.
You can access Phoenicians and the Making of the Mediterranean here.
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Dr. Robinson Sponsored and Participated in the Panel Cultural Heritage and Mass Atrocities |
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James Robinson, professor at the Harris School of Public Policy, Institute Director of the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts, and 24-25 CISSR Faculty Fellow, joined a panel discussion organized by the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures and the Pearson Institute.
The panel provided a multidisciplinary exploration into political violence, culture, anthropology, and archaeology with five speakers each looking into a different aspect of the interaction between culture and contention. In his speech, Robinson spoke of two confounding examples; Guinea and Egypt, where a dismissal of political contention or socio-economic decay seems to have projected itself as a positive contribution into another field.
Guinea has historically deeply-rooted secret societies that the government cracked down on, destructing all symbols of these organizations such as intricate masks symbolizing belonging and loyalty. Dr. Robinson noted that some scholars argue this act of oppression reflects the lack of a civil war in Guinea, especially compared to what has happened in Sierra Leone or Cote D’Ivoire.
Robinson also gave the example of the massive construction projects General al-Sisi organized outside of Cairo with the intent of building a new capital while roughly sixty million people live below the poverty line in Egypt. He noted that leaders try to create a new culture, reality, and symbols to define their time in power, while often utilizing public resources at the expense of the public. You can listen to the full discussion here.
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