Welcome on my homepage. I am a historian of contemporary Africa and a professor at the University of Bayreuth. I work on the colonial and postcolonial state, the history of humanitarian action, police and security, as well as the theory and methods of global history.
My first book, Les corps habillés au Togo. Genèse coloniale des métiers de police (Karthala 2015), focuses on the history of African soldiers and policemen in Togo. The book examines the history of a social group that seized power in 1963, in the first post-Independence Coup d’Etat in West Africa.
My second book, Minimal Humanity. Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Human Needs (Routledge 2020), explores the invention of ‚basic needs‘, a notion that has become the cornerstone of humanitarian expertise. The book looks at how humanitarian actors, at key moments in their history, decided to quantify, codify and standardise emergency relief work. This book has been awarded the Choice Outstanding Academic Title Award Winner 2020 and has been discussed at length in the International Review of the Red Cross.
My latest book, Les humanités humanitaires. Petit manuel d’autodéfense à l’usage de volontaires (Les Belles Lettres 2023) aims to make social science research more accessible to aid workers. While technical knowledge has been widely disseminated through handbooks and standards, critical knowledge is still more difficult to access. This book provides an introduction to key debates on humanitarian aid and neoliberalism, war, corruption, genocide, refugee camps, epidemics, racism, feminism, statistics and climate change. It was awarded the Research Prize of the Fondation of the French Red Cross 2024 and is currently being translated into English.
Another area of interest is the theory and methods of global history. I have co-edited a book on the use of Actor-Network-Theories (ANT) for global history: Techniques of Globalization. Global History Meets Actor-Network Theory (Bielefeld 2016), and published several articles on the benefits and limitations of global history. On this website you will find a short summary of these books as well as access to reviews. You can find academic articles and book chapters here, and short pieces, op-eds and interviews here, as well as a short Bio Do not hesitate to get in touch.