I am a former refugee goatherd in a remote refugee camp in Sudan. My academic work touches on colonialism, decolonization, revolutions, nationalist movements, peace, conflict and security studies relevant to Africa and Southeast Asia. More specifically, the areas of my research, teaching, mentoring and consulting interests are modern and contemporary Horn of Africa and island Southeast Asia.
I have lately been working on the political economy of conflict in the Horn of Africa and its adjoining waters. My most recent book has particularly looked at the root causes, dynamics and consequences of piracy in Somalia.
Yes, I have interviewed many pirates.
No, I do not know Johnny Depp, Barkhad Abdi, or Tom Hanks.
Piracy in Somalia: Violence and Development in the Horn of Africa
Changing Horizons of African History
Maritime Terrorism and Piracy in the Indian Ocean Region
Third World Colonialism and Strategies of Liberation: Eritrea and East Timor Compared
Publications
- An African Revolution Reclaimed: a Memoir of Eritrean Freedom Fighter Mesfin Hagos with Mesfin Hagos (Red Sea Press, 2023).
- Piracy in Somalia: Violence and Development in the Horn of Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2019).
- African Liberation Theology: Intergenerational Conversations on Eritrea鈥檚 Possible Futures co-authored with Ghirmai Negash (Red Sea Press, 2018).
- Changing Horizons of African History ed. with Anthony A. Lee and Edward A. Alpers (Africa World Press, 2016).
- Maritime Terrorism and Piracy in the Indian Ocean Region, ed. with Patricia Schneider and Andrew C. Winner (London and New York: Routledge, 2015).
- When Elephants Fight, the Grass Suffers: A report on the Local Consequences of Piracy in Puntland (Dalhousie Marine Piracy Project: Dalhousie University Marine Affairs Program Technical Report #12, 2014):
- Third World Colonialism and Strategies of Liberation: Eritrea and East Timor Compared (Cambridge University Press, 2013).
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- 鈥淐limate Dislocation in Somalia: Preliminary Findings from Puntland.鈥 A Technical Report for the Puntland Development and Research Center, (PDRC, March/April 2023), with Abdullahi Abdurahman Ahmed 鈥淐ayrow鈥 and Muctar Hersi:
- 鈥淭he Peace that led to War: Ethio-Eritrean Relations since 2018,鈥 afriche e orienti No. 2, 2021 [published in 2023] (special issue on 鈥渢he Specious Dividends of Peace in the Horn of Africa鈥): 57-74.
- 鈥淏etween a Rock & a Hard Place: Eritrean Refugees in Tigray & the Ethiopian Civil War,鈥 with Yibeyin Hagos Yohannes, Meron Estefanos and Anonymous (IPRA, February 2022).
- 鈥淣either Old nor New: Ethio-Eritrean Relations through the Dawn of Change in Ethiopia,鈥 523-548, in Ethiopia in the Wake of Political Reforms, Melaku G. Desta et. al. (eds), (Hollywood, CA: Tsehai Publishers, 2020).
- 鈥淓thio-Eritrea Peace Deal: Implications for Regional Integration,鈥 Tana Papers and Policy Briefs (Tana Forum 2019): 4-9.
- 鈥淐rimes within Crimes in Somalia: Double-dealing Pirates, Fraudulent Negotiators, Duplicitous Intermediaries and Treacherous Illegal Fishers,鈥 Journal of Territorial and Maritime Studies Vol 6 No. 1 (Winter/Spring 2019): 51-63.
- 鈥淭he Law of the Sea and Il/Legal Fishing in Somalia,鈥 The Nautilus IX (Spring 2018): 29-52.
- 鈥淭he Horn of Africa from the Cold War to the War on Terror鈥 in Charles Ambler, William Worger and Nwando Achebe and (eds.), A Companion to African History (Wiley-Blackwell, 2018)
- 鈥淩ansoming in Contemporary Northeast Africa: Piracy in Puntland,鈥 African Economic History 42 (2014) (published in May 2015), 215-237.
- 鈥淭he Eritrean Long March: The Strategic Withdrawal of the Eritrean People鈥檚 Liberation Front (EPLF), 1978-1979,鈥 The Journal of Military History, Vol. 73, No. 4 (October 2009), 1231-1271.
- Winner of the 2019 International Association for the Study of Organized Crime award for the best book in the study of organized crime.
- Member of the Royal Society of Canada, College of New Scholars