Maxwell African Scholars Union Presents: An Sinking Ship of State

Maxwell African Scholars Union Presents: A Sinking Ship of State: Understanding Mali’s Crisis Bruce Whitehouse Once considered a democratic success story, the West African country of Mali experienced a dramatic rise in insecurity in late 2011, precipitating the coup that toppled an elected president from power and the takeover of its northern half by rebel groups. In this talk, Bruce Whitehouse traces the decline of state power in Mali and reflects on prospects for restoring peace and democracy in that West African country. Bruce Whitehouse is Assistant Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where he is also associated with the Globalization and Social Change Initiative and the Africana Studies Program. He has conducted field research in Nigeria, the Republic of Congo, and Mali. His book Migrants and Strangers in an African City: Exile, Dignity, Belonging, an ethnography of transnational migration between the western Sahel and the Congo Basin, was published in 2012 by Indiana University Press. He was on a Fulbright scholarship in Bamako, Mali last March when a coup d’état toppled that country’s government; he remained in Bamako for three months after the coup, completing his fieldwork and blogging about events on the ground in the Malian capital. Lunch Will Be Served February 8, 2013 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm 341 Eggers Hall