Africa at Noon on November 6, 2013

Rethinking the Migration-Conflict Nexus: Insights from the Cocoa Regions in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana

Matthew Mitchell
Postdoctoral Fellow
Political Science
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Time and Loca­tion

12:00pm, 206 Ingra­ham Hall, 1155 Obser­va­tory Drive, Madi­son, WI

 

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Description

Although many scholars have noted the salience of mobility throughout the African continent there has been little systematic investigation into the link between migration and conflict. Moreover, much scholarship has tended to see migration as primarily a by-product of conflict and not as a security issue in its own right. In analyzing and contrasting the different migration-conflict trajectories in the cocoa regions in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, this presentation develops an empirically-informed model for rethinking the relationship between migration and conflict.

Bio

Matthew I. Mitchell is a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His previous research on migration and violent conflict in the cocoa regions in West Africa has appeared in African Studies Review; Conflict, Security & Development; Journal of Contemporary African Studies, and in numerous edited volumes. His current research explores the links between land grievances and electoral violence in Côte d’Ivoire and Kenya. He received his Ph.D. in Political Studies from Queen’s University, Canada.