Professor of History at the University of Arizona

Email: benlaw@email.arizona.edu

Benjamin N. Lawrance is the former Conable Chair in International Studies at Rochester Institute of Technology and is currently a professor of history at the University of Arizona.He has conducted field research in West Africa since 1997 and published extensively about political and social conditions. He has served as an expert witness in the asylum cases for  over 130 West Africans in the US, Europe and Canada which have involved human trafficking, citizenship, statelessness, female genital cutting, gender issues, gender identity, ethnic and religious violence, and witchcraft accusations.

Email: E.Bertrand@warwick.ac.uk

Eloïse Bertrand has lived and worked in Burkina Faso for several years. She has led a conflict assessment in the country in 2013 on behalf of Search for Common Ground, an international peace-building organisation and have published several articles on Burkinabè politics and social affairs. She is currently a PhD student at the University of Warwick working on opposition parties in hybrid regimes which involved extensive field research in Burkina Faso and Uganda.

Email: jesper.bjarnesen@nai.uu.se

Jesper Bjarnesen is an Anthropologist and Africanist. Since 2013 he is a Senior researcher at the Nordic African Institute at Uppsala, and since 2015 a Program Coordinator.
He has authored and published numerous articles and lectured in different Universities around Europe. He also taught Conflict Anthropology for Undergraduate and Graduate Student at Uppsala University. Moreover, he has worked as a Consultant for Save the Children and for the Swedish National Defense College and Research Agency. He has conducted extensive anthropological research inBurkina Faso, Côte d`Ivoire and Guinea Conakry.

Email: virginiebaudais@gmail.com

Dr Virginie Baudais is a senior researcher with expertise in the Sahel and West Africa. She worked for two United Nations peacekeeping operations, in Côte d’Ivoire and Mali, as a Political Officer and she is currently conducting field research in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Her expertise includes development, governance, humanitarian protection and security in the central Sahel.