Samson Abebe Bezabeh's work wins prize
The Department of Social Anthropology's PhD candidate Samson Bezabeh has recently been given the African Author Prize, awarded by the high-ranking journal African Affairs.
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Bezabeh was notified about winning the prize earlier this year and was formally awarded the prize at the African Studies Association UK's conference (ASAUK) held 6-8 September 2012. The reviewers of the article regard it as "...an important contribution to current debates about citizenship in Africa and [which] challenges dominant interpretations that the problems of African citizenship stem from the legacies of colonialism and the incompleteness of the African state". As a winner of the African Author Prize, Samson Abebe Bezabeh received a cash prize, one year free subscription to the journal African Affairs, a paid trip to attend the ASAUK conference.
Bezabeh received the prize in a well-attended ceremony at the conference and also presented a paper there. Following the prize, the journal African Affairs has also made the article freely available on the internet and it has also been announced widely in the journal's advertising.
The article, entitled "Citizenship and the Logic of Sovereignty in Djibouti" and published in African Affairs volume 110, number 441, deals with the colonial and postcolonial trajectories of citizenship in Djibouti and investigates the problems of sovereingty and statehood also more widely. The article is freely available by following this link.
