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Professor of African History, University of Warwick

Along with Warwick colleague Professor Daniel Branch, I currently hold an AHRC award for a project on 'Empire Loyalists; Histories of Rebellion and Collaboration'. A book from this project in contracted with OUP, and will be published in 2015.
A study of the Cold War in Africa is now nearing completion, and will be published by Faber & Faber in 2014.

With research support from the Research Council of Norway, and in collaboration with colleagues at the Peace Research Institute, Oslo, I am pursuing research on state violence in eastern Africa, especially in connection with the history of Somalia and its diaspora in the region since the 1950s. Publications from this research are planned for 2014 and 2015.

I am participating Early-Stage Researcher (Doctoral Scholarship) Marie Curie ITN Project, funded by the EU. This project, 'Resilience in East African Landscapes: Identifying critical threshold and sustainable trajectories – past, present and future (REAL)', funds more than a dozen doctoral students and involves collaboration between the University of Uppsala, University of York, University of Cologne, Ghent University, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology, Nairobi, the University of Dar es Salaam, and Warwick University, and supports a variety of training workshops as well as original research on the environmental history of eastern Africa. The work of Warwick doctoral student Maxmillian Chuhila is supported through this award. Publications from this project are planned for 2016 and 2017.

I am participating in an ESRC-funded Seminar Series on British Africa Policy after Labour. This research network will involve six seminars in the UK over the coming three years, one to be hosted here at Warwick, as well as a seminar in Nairobi, hosted at the British Institute in Eastern Africa. The seminar involves partnerships with Chatham House, the Royal Africa Society, and the All-Part Parliamentary Group for Africa, as well as the universities of Sheffield, Birmingham, and Brookes Oxford. The Warwick seminar in this series is scheduled for September 2014.

My work in connection with the High Court case brought against the British government by four Mau Mau veterans has resulted in the publication of two important articles in 2012, focusing on the subject of torture and abuse under British rule in Kenya, and another article on rape in wartime (published in 2013). A short monograph on the court case and its significance is planned for 2014.

After the publication of a monograph in May 2007, The Khat Controversy, I more recently completed a study of the social harms associated with khat consumption for the Home Office. This study, co-authored with Dr Neil Carrier, also looked at the legal status of khat across a number of countries. I then served on a government working party on khat use in the UK, under the Advisory Committee on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), which recommended the continued legal status of khat in the UK.
Along with Dr David Turton, I am continuing to work on further publications from the AHRC-funded project on the social history and economic development of the Lower Omo Valley of southern Ethiopia, including a monograph planned for 2015.

I continue to research and write on the theme of state violence and its consequences, and have recently compiled research examining the history of political violence in Kenya, incorporating the story of the current ICC prosecutions of leading Kenyan politicians. This will be published at the completion of the current ICC process, hopefully in 2014.