Scholars in conversation: Anastasia Shesterinina on understanding civil wars in conversation with Yvan Guichaoua

The Political Violence, Conflict, and Transnational Activism (PVCTA) Working Group is delighted to invite you to the first event of an online series of discussions on emerging research themes. The first discussion features Anastasia Shesterinina on understanding civil wars from pre-war to post-war stages. Together with Yvan Guichaoua they will discuss the state of the field in civil war studies, new agendas and key strands and inspiration behind their respective projects. After an introductory conversation between our speakers, we would like our audience to engage them in an exchange of ideas.

Speakers

Dr Anastasia Shesterinina is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Sheffield. In 2021, she launched a 7-year UKRI FLF Civil War Paths project “Understanding Civil War from Pre- to Post-War Stages: A Comparative Approach” and is the author of Mobilizing in Uncertainty: Collective Identities and War in Abkhazia (Cornell University Press, 2021) unpacking how ordinary people navigate the uncertainty of the war’s onset to arrive at different mobilization decisions.

Dr Yvan Guichaoua is Senior Lecturer at the Brussels School of International Studies at University of Kent. He is also a former teaching fellow at Yale University and research officer at the University of Oxford. His focus is the dynamics of insurgency formation, rebel governance and state responses in Nigeria, Côte d'Ivoire, Mali and Niger since 2004. Since 2007, Yvan Guichaoua has been studying Tuareg recurring rebellions in Niger and Mali and the rise of Jihadism in the Sahel.