Ruth Marshall

Ruth Marshall is the Director of the French Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA – French Foreign Ministry) based in the University of Ibadan, Nigeria and Associate Researcher at the Centre d’Etudes des Mondes Africains (CNRS-Sorbonne) in Paris. She holds a DPhil (Oxon) in Politics, and over the past fifteen years her research has focused on Nigeria and, more recently, the Côte d’Ivoire. She has published extensively on the political implications of the Pentecostal revival in Nigeria, and on issues of autochthony, citizenship, and violence in the Côte d’Ivoire. Her current research, funded by a grant from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, focuses on ultra-nationalist youth militants and militia groups in Southern Côte d’Ivoire. As well as academic work on the Ivorian crisis, Dr. Marshall has consulted for the International Crisis Group and the Special Advisor for the Prevention of Genocide at the United Nations. She has lived in West Africa (Côte d’Ivoire, Senegal and Nigeria) for the past seven years, and her current mandate as Director of IFRA involves the promotion of social scientific research in West Africa and the reinforcement of links and exchanges between West African and European/American researchers and institutions.