Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa

Does dual citizenship reproduce inequalities?

Robtel Neajai Pailey grapples with this question and more in her engaging monograph Development, (Dual) Citizenship and Its Discontents in Africa: The Political Economy of Belonging to Liberia (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Drawing on rich life histories from over two hundred in-depth interviews in West Africa, Europe, and North America, she examines socio-economic change in Liberia, Africa’s first black republic, through the prism of citizenship. Marking how historical policy changes on citizenship and contemporary public discourse on dual citizenship have impacted development policy and practice, Pailey reveals that as Liberia transformed from a country of immigration to one of emigration, so too did the nature of citizenship, thus influencing claims for and against dual citizenship. Her book develops a new model for conceptualising citizenship within the context of crisis-affected states while offering a compelling critique of the neoliberal framing of diasporas and donors as the panacea to post-war reconstruction.

This event will take place in the Nash Lecture Theatre, with drinks in the Somerset Room. There will be some discounted copies of the book available at the drinks reception after the launch.

If you are an external attendee from outside KCL, you must register for this event no later than 12 midday the day before. Please note that the events work on a first-come first-serve basis, so do come on time to ensure you get a spot.

About the speakers

Robtel Neajai Pailey is Assistant Professor in International Social and Public Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). A Liberian scholar-activist working at the intersection of Critical Development Studies, Critical African Studies and Critical Race Studies, she centres her research on how structural transformation is conceived and contested by local, national and transnational actors from ‘crisis’-affected regions of the so-called Global South.

Discussant

Dr Christine Cheng is Senior Lecturer in War Studies at King’s College London. She is the author of Extralegal Groups in Post-Conflict Liberia- How Trade Makes the State (OUP), winner of the 2019 Conflict Research Society’s Annual Book Prize. Working with the UK government’s Stabilisation Unit, she co-authored Securing and Sustaining Elite Bargains that Reduce Violent Conflict, the final report of the influential Elite Bargains and Political Deals project. At King’s, Dr Cheng teaches on the MA in Conflict, Security, and Development. She holds a DPhil from Oxford and an MPA from Princeton. She tweets @cheng_christine.