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I write about technology, biometrics, immigration, & borders for a variety of platforms, ranging from top academic presses to popular blogs. Below are some of my recent publications:

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Blog posts

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Carbon Fingerprints. London Review of Books (LRB) Blog (14 February 2023).

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Researching Digital Identity in Times of Crisis. Workshop Report for the Alan Turing Institute (August 2021).

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Gateway or Barrier? The Contested Politics of Humanitarian Biometrics. Datafication and Digital Rights (blog) (12 January 2021).

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Passing as a Refugee. Africa is a Country (10 November 2020).

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Machine-Readable Refugees. London Review of Books (LRB) Blog (14 September 2020).

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Countries Around the World Are Using Border Surveillance Systems Against Their Own Citizens. The Conversation (17 August 2020).

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Conversation with Ruben Andersson. Africa is a Country (9 July 2018).

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Unthinking Refugee Studies. Africa is a Country (11 April 2018).

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Conversation with Abdul Adan. Africa is a Country (11 October 2017)

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Jeffrey Gettleman's Tired Tome. Africa is a Country (21 August 2017).

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Instead of Building a Big, Beautiful Wall, We Should Rethink Our Idea of Borders. The Washington Post (11 August 2017).

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Can African States Offer New Approaches to Refugee Asylum? Africa is a Country (23 December 2016)

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Reporting

In Kenya, You Cannot Go Anywhere Without an ID. I Don’t Have One. Mail & Guardian (13 April 2020).

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Mobile Credit Expands Mass Surveillance of Ordinary Kenyans. Coda Story (11 September 2019).

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Kenya's Controversial Biometric Project is Shrouded in Secrecy. Coda Story (3 May 2019).

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Book Projects

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Biometrics from the Margins (In Progress).

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The Other Climate Technology (In Progress)

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We Do Not Have Borders: Greater Somalia and the Predicaments of Belonging in Kenya. New African History series (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2017). 

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 Reports for Civil Society Groups

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A Very British Problem: The Evolution of Britain's Militarized Industrial Complex. Report for Campaign Against the Arms Trade (4 August 2022).

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Biometrics Collection Under the Pretext of Counter-Terrorism. Case Study of Israel/Palestine and Case Study of Somalia. Report for Privacy International (28 May 2021).

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Defending the Rights of Refugees and Migrants in the Digital Age. Report for Amnesty International (forthcoming). Co-authored with Roya Pakzad.

 

 

Academic Publications

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Digital Identity and Inclusion: Tracing Technological Transitions. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 24, no. 1, (2023): 36-45. Co-authored with Emrys Schoemaker and Aaron Martin.

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Globalizing Racism and De-provincializing Muslim Africa. Modern Intellectual History 19, no. 3(May 2021): 912-933. Co-authored with Alden Young.

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Between Surveillance and Recognition: Rethinking Digital Identity in Aid. Big Data and Society 8, no 1 (1 April 2021). Co-authored with Margie Cheesman,  Aaron Martin, and Emrys Schoemaker.

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Biometrics, Race Making, and White Exceptionalism: The Controversy Over Universal Fingerprinting in Post-World War II Kenya. The Journal of African History  61:1 (March 2020): 23-43.

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AHR Conversation: Walls, Boundaries and Borders. American Historical Review  122, no. 5 (December 2017): 1501-1553.

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Rethinking the “Shifta War” Fifty Years After Independence: Myth, Memory, and Marginalization. In Kenya at Fifty: History, Policy, Politics, eds. Michael M. Kithinji, Mickie M. Koster, and Jerono P. Rotich. Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.

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Unaccountable Census: Colonial Enumeration and Its Implications for the Somali People of Kenya. The Journal of African History  56, no. 3 (November 2015): 409-428.

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Producing History from Elisions, Fragments, and Silences: Public Testimony, the Asiatic Poll-Tax Campaign, and the Isaaq Somali Population of Kenya. Journal of Northeast African Studies 13, no. 2 (2013): 177-206.

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Fieldwork Notes

 

 

 

 

 

 

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