Description:

This virtual panel discussion convenes leading experts to delve into the causes and dynamics of the current war and humanitarian crisis in Sudan. They will discuss the 2018-19 uprising, the 2021 coup, and the 2023 military conflict, examining their key political, regional, and economic dimensions, as well as the experiences of civilians and civil society. For additional background, we recommend this new special issue of the Middle East Research and Information Project, to which all of the panel participants contributed. 

This program is co-sponsored by the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa and Program for African Studies.  It will be moderated by Eden Melles, a PhD student in Political Science at Northwestern University.

Khalid Medani is Associate Professor of Political Science and Islamic Studies at McGill University, where he is also Chair of the African Studies Program. His research focuses on globalization and the political economy of Islamist and Ethnic Politics in Africa and the Middle East with a special focus on Sudan, Egypt, and Somalia. Dr. Medani is the author of Black Markets and Militants: Informal Networks in the Middle East and Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2021).

Nisrin Elamin is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Toronto.  Her work investigates the connections between land, race, belonging and empire-making in Sudan and the broader Sahel region. She uses land and struggles over land as a lens through which to examine state surveillance of Sahelian migration as well as Gulf Arab corporate investments and political interventions in Sudan and neighboring countries. 

Azza Ahmed Abdel Aziz is an independent researcher.  She received her PhD from SOAS University of London from the department of Anthropology and Sociology.  Her work has focused on health seeking behaviour in relation to forced migration. She has equally focused on women's political participation during the Sudan revolution of 2018/19. Further work has focused on the role of art and music during conflict and political unrest.