Wednesday, October 19, 2022, 4:45 p.m. – 6:15 p.m.

KHALID MUSTAFA MEDANI

"The Great Transformation in the Middle East and Africa: Globalization, (In)formal Markets and the Politics of Identity"

Goldwin Smith Hall, Kaufmann Auditorium, G64

Understanding the political and socio-economic factors which give rise to youth recruitment into militant organizations is central to grasping some of the most important issues that affect the contemporary Middle East and Africa. This lecture is structured around salient themes of Prof. Medani's important study, Black Markets and Militants:  Informal Networks in the Middle East and Africa (Cambridge UP, 2021), which examines the relationship among economic globalization, informal financial, housing and labor markets, and the emergence and evolution of Islamist and ethnic politics in Sudan, Egypt and Somalia.

Khalid Mustafa Medani  is associate professor of political science and Islamic Studies and Chair of the African Studies Program at McGill University. He received a B.A. from Brown University, an M.A. from Georgetown University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.   His most recent book, Black Markets and Militants: Informal Networks in the Middle East and Africa, was just recognized by the American Political Science Association for their 2022 award for Best Book on MENA politics by a senior scholar.