Insurgency in the Sahel: Simple Explanatory Models Meet Complex Political Realities in Central Mali
Matt Turner
Speaker’s Bio
Matt Turner is a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor in the Department of Geography at the UW–Madison, where he has taught since 1995. A people-and-environment geographer, his interdisciplinary research examines the relationships among environmental governance, poverty, social justice, and environmental change, particularly in the semi-arid regions of West Africa. Drawing on political ecology, agrarian political economy, and environmental sciences, his work explores pastoralism, climate change, food security, agricultural livelihoods, trans-Saharan migration, and resource-related conflict. His recent research examines the social and ecological consequences of conservation initiatives, pastoral mobility, and climate vulnerability across the Sudano-Sahelian region. Turner received his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1992, and is a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.