Claire Medard

Researcher, Institute for Research and Sustainable Development (IRD, France), since 2002 :

- 2002-2008 : UR 107, Research Unit « Construction identitaire et mondialisation » (CIM), Bondy, IRD

- Since 2008: URMIS, Research Unit « Migrations et société », Paris (University Paris Diderot – University of Nice – IRD UMR 205 – CNRS UMR 8245)

PhD in geography, 1999, University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, « Territoires de l’ethnicité : encadrement, revendications et conflits territoriaux au Kenya », supervisor Prof R. Pourtier.

Partnerships:

- June 2004-June 2007 : Department of History, Political Sciences and Archeology, Kenyatta University, Nairobi, Kenya.

- February 2011- July 2014: Centre for Population and Applied Statistics (CPAS), Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda,

- Since Octobre 2020 : Department of Sociology, Psychology and Anthropology (SPA), Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya

Associate Member :

- IFRA French Institute for Research in Africa, Nairobi, Kenya ;

- LAM, Laboratoire Les Afriques dans le monde, Sciences- po et Université de Bordeaux, France.

Research training

- Joint coordination of the East African Methodological training in Social Sciences 2005, 2006, 2013, 2016, 2018, focused on the conduct of fieldwork and interdisciplinary dialogue within social sciences. - Enhancing dialogue between social and biophysical sciences

- Joint coordination of Seminar on East African Research: Texts and Fieldwork, EHESS, 2015-18 with Marie-Aude Fouéré (EHESS), Yvan Droz (IHEID) and Hervé Maupeu (University of Pau).

Editorial boards

Since 2020- Revue Sources (https://www.sources-journal.org/)

Since 2019- Les Cahiers de l’Afrique de l’Est

Funded Projects :      

- 2008-2011: participation in ANR Frontafrique « Frontières africaines : absurdité ou enracinement ? Nouvelles approches de l'historicité des frontières africaines », dirigée par P. Boiley, CEMAF, Paris.

- 2012-2015 : joint coordination of International Young Research team associated to IRD (JEIA), « Multi-disciplinary partner team on Poverty, Resource Accessibility and spatial Mobility in East Africa (M-PRAM) », with Valérie Golaz, INED and Gideon Rutaremwa (CPAS, Makerere).

- 2010-2012 : participation in « Projets d’Agro-Carburants et transformations TERritoriales » (PACTER), coordination S.Duvail, UMR 208 and National Museums of Kenya (NMK).

- 2017- 2020: participation in ANR « The Maasai, the Gnu and the Metropolis (MaGnuM) — Understanding the socio-ecological complexity of wildlife migration landscapes south of Nairobi National Park, Kenya — An interdisciplinary, collaborative, and operational approach ». Coordination François Mialhe, University of Lyon Lumière.

- 2019-2022 : Participation in « De la diversité bio-culturelle dans les jardins des parisiens. Circulations croisées de végétaux, de personnes et d'imaginaires » (EXORIGINS), coordination Emilie Stoll. Projet Emergence(s) de la Ville de Paris.

- 2019-2022 : participation in GDRI-Sud, « Dynamiques Environnementales et sociales à Long Terme des deltas de l’ouest de l’Océan Indien et scénarios AssociéS (DELTAS), Kenya, Tanzanie, Madagascar et Mozambique », coordination S. Duvail (IRD/PALOC), D. Nyingi (NMK, Nairobi) and J. Dinis, University of Mondlane, Maputo.

- 2019-2023 : Participation in  Franco-Swiss ANR « Local Moralities and self-accomplishment in East Africa (SALMEA), Coordination Y Droz, IHEID and H Médard, AMU.

- 2020-21 : Participation in Aimwell (African identities, Moralities and Well-being), Moi University (African Cluster Centre of Excellence (ACC)/University of Bayreuth).

Research Themes

- State territory, internal boundaries and neopatrimonialism

In her work, C. Medard focuses on State territory as an ideological and physical tool of control. In Kenya and Ouganda, many conflicts originate from the State’s specific mode of intervention and over reliance on boundaries which have entrenched local belonging and identities, exclusive indigenous claims to land and resources, echoing the State’s exclusive territorial stategies. By manipulating belonging, the State has paradoxically promoted otherness within the confines of its national territory. Broadly speaking, the creation of inequalities which, in time, contribute to the appearance of violence, points at a neopatrimonial mode of control over ressources, including institutions and land, by State actors.

- Discussing land as Heritage and wealth (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania)

Considering at the plurality of strategies to claim and own land, at the local, national and global scales, C. Medard looks at policies regulating land and associated ressource tenure. In Kenya and Uganda, land registration started over one hundred years ago and now covers a large area. In this regard, the East African exceptionality puts reforms and current land transformations in perspective.  Land subdivision, between 2010 and 2019,  in the peri-urban region of Kampala was studied through a case study using archives, cartography and in-depth interviews, in collaboration with Valerie Golaz (INED/LPED). The start of the oil era in Lake Albert was also explored looking at demographic trends as well as territorial and land-ternure dynamics and their environmental impacts (https://mpramea.wordpress.com) in the collaborative framework of MPRAM.

- Elections

The State’s prerogatives to define and redefine access to ressources are well-established. How they contribute to the instrumentalisation of ethnicity and how they relate to territorial strategies was studied in the case of Kenya (electoral violence in the 1990s, and in 2006-2008). In Uganda, in 2011, elections were mapped out systematically using different sources (press, electoral and population data, local investigation), within the framework of a collaborative research involving Makerere University and IFRA in Nairobi, highlighting the presidentialism of a hybrid regime.