A programme launched jointly by the University of Cambridge, Trinity Hall and the Philomathia Foundation has created new research and teaching collaborations with African universities, scholars, and students in the social sciences to help seek solutions to some of the world’s most intractable challenges.

Introducing The 2018 Philomathia Africa Scholars

Rachel Sittoni is currently pursuing her PhD in Politics and International Studies at the University of Cambridge. She received her BA in Political Science from the University of Nairobi and her MSc in Security, Leadership and Society from King’s College London. She is also an alumna of the ALC Peace Security and Development Fellowship programme for African Scholars. Her PhD research concerns youth politics, in particular the ways that youth feature in political change in Africa. Often, such change is mediated by increased violence and insecurity, which is followed by violent policing that targets youth. Focusing on urban slums in Kenya, her research hopes to understand how the securitization of youth affects youth engagement as citizens and their broader status in society.

Aminata Buganzi Kinana is from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and received her BA from Grinnell College. She is studtying for her MPhil in African Studies, and her research focuses on the role of philanthropic foundations formed by French luxury conglomerates as a form of French diplomacy in the African continent. Her broader academic interests lie in the historical and contemporary ties between Europe and Africa. In Aminata’s words, “I would like to be a part of a new generation of thinkers who are a part of the reinvigoration and restructuring of the Euro-African diplomatic relationship.”

Lyn Joanne Kouadio received her BA in political science from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Ghana and is currently studying for her MPhil in African Studies. Her research explores the role that the politics of information has played in constructing narratives about human rights violations in the 2011 Ivorian post-electoral crisis, and how those narratives have informed international responses. She explains that “Côte d’Ivoire is my national home and where my heart is, but my identity is also owed, in various regards, to Benin, the Netherlands and Ghana.”