Dr. Lamine Doumbia

Short Bio

Dr. Lamine Doumbia is a social anthropologist and currently a postdoctoral researcher at Excellence Cluster “Africa Multiple” of University of Bayreuth. After his fellowship at the Institute of African Studies of the University of Bayreuth, He recently completed an individual fellowship and Co-convened the interdisciplinary fellow Group 6 at the Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa – University of Ghana Legon. Doumbia was also a postdoctoral fellowship at the German Historical Institute Paris (DHIP) within the framework of the transnational research group "The Bureaucratisation of African Societies", based in Dakar at Centre de Recherches sur les Politiques Sociales (CREPOS) – Université Cheikh Anta Diop.

His current research project examines "Land Governance and Bureaucratisation in Bamako, Ouagadougou and Dakar - Mimicry and Hybridisation of Logics".

Lamine completed the degree programmes “African Studies: Culture and Society of Africa” (BA) and “Cultural and Social Anthropology” (MA) at the University of Bayreuth. He completed his PhD in Social Anthropology at the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS) with a scholarship of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.

Selected Publications

• Sanogo A., Doumbia L. (2021): Land Tenure and Public Infrastructure: Airport Building in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal. In: Chitonge H., Harvey R. (eds) Land Tenure Challenges in Africa. Economic Geography. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82852-3_10
• Doumbia L. (2021): Eviction and Relocation in West Africa. A Socio-Anthropological Essay on Bureaucratized Processes, In: Francia. Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte 48 (2021)
• Carbonnel, L., Diallo, K. & Doumbia, L. (2021) « Associations et bureaucratisation : perspectives africaines », Emulations - Revue de sciences sociales, (37), p. 7-22. doi: 10.14428/emulations.037.01.
• Doumbia, L. (2021): Decolonisation of knowledge on Land Governance as per Higher Education – An ethnographical experience from West Africa, In: Irina Turner et al. (eds): Decolonization of higher education in Africa, Routledge, London
• Doumbia, Lamine & Ousmane Diouf (2020): African Unity and the process of integration from the grassroots: The case of Mali and Senegal, In: Grill, M. & Gerits, F. (eds.) Visions of African Unity – New Perspectives on the history of Pan-Africanism and African Unification Projects, New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Sabbi, M.: Doumbia, L. and Neubert, D. (2020) « Dynamics of Everyday Life within Municipal Administrations in Francophone and Anglophone Africa”, Research Article, Africa Spectrum, https://doi.org/10.1177/0002039720914630
• Doumbia, L. (2019) : De la périphérie au centre-ville – Un terrain d’anthropologie juridique et politique, In : Hüsken et al. (éds.): The multiplicity of Orders and practices, Festschrift, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag. Cologne
• Doumbia, L. (2018) : Une sécurisation foncière urbaine dans l’impasse – exemple de Bamako, Mali, Cologne : Rüdiger Köppe Verlag.

Project Description

This research project contributes to the research section mobilities of the Excellence Cluster “Africa multiple” at the University of Bayreuth with a complex imbroglio surrounding urban land governance in West Africa (Dakar, Bamako and Ouagadougou) from a socio-anthropological perspective. The subtitle of the project „An anthropological perspective on processes of mimicry and hybridization of bureaucratic practices” refers to the analysis of the relationship between legal dispossessions of land by state authorities and civilian collective action against these dispossessions, who use bureaucratic means similar to the ones used by the state. In a timely manner, it links up with recent decolonial discourses as I observe an accommodation of endogenous perceptions of property to changing circumstances, while at the same time commenting on a theme that will remain of central concern, particularly in the urban landscapes of West- and Central Africa.

Furthermore, by analysing the use of bureaucratic technologies and digitalisation, Doumbia establishes a connection to Prof. Dr. Andrea Behrends research profile "Lifeworlds in Crises". That is, in his project, Doumbia considers the urban land problem as part of the management of everyday crises in West Africa. From their perspective, diverse actors (individuals as well as federations, associations) use bureaucratic practices, official correspondences, social media and other digital technologies as creative forms of crisis management. In this context, he intends to write a research proposal for the acquisition of third-party funding under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Andrea Behrends.