Senior Researcher

Jesper Bjarnesen specializes in research on regional labour mobilities in West Africa through wartime and peace, emphasising intergenerational relations, rural-urban connections, and urban land rights. He also works on African street protest movements, with a main geographical focus on Francophone West Africa.

Research

Jesper has studied the regional mobilities between Burkina Faso and Côte d’Ivoire since 2009, focusing on the experiences and narratives of migrants in both countries, and tracing the significant changes and continuities in mobility dynamics over time. He has explored the intergenerational relations within migrant households and studied the politics around resettlement and access to urban land. In collaboration with others, he also studies political mobilisation and social movements in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, and Burundi with an emphasis on coalition-building and street protests.

Current positions and affiliations

• Senior researcher, NAI
• Associate professor in cultural anthropology
• Research associate at the WATHI citizen’s think tank in Dakar, Senegal
  

Background

Jesper is an anthropologist, with fieldwork experience from Tanzania, Sri Lanka, Senegal, Burkina Faso, Burundi, and Côte d’Ivoire. He holds degrees from the universities of Copenhagen and Uppsala, and is the co-founder (with Franzisca Zanker) of the AMMODI research network, which is a Collaborative Research Group under the European association of African Studies, AEGIS. He collaborates with scholars at the universities of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), Bamako (Mali), Johannesburg (South Africa), and Ghana, and the WATHI citizen’s think tank in Dakar (Senegal).

Publications

Full list of publications (Google Scholar) External link, opens in new window.

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