Arnaud Yombo: Making a secessionist war a research problem?

HUMA Doctoral Seminar Series

Speaker: Arnaud Yombo (HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town, South Africa)

Making a secessionist crisis a research problem is at the heart of the axiological neutrality challenge. How to remain objective and not passionate when everything is all about passion and causes defence? How can a student cope with a so-called very sensitive topic with pressures from the environment and a very politicized university milieu that influence his research journey? How do we compare two secessions cases that have succeeded in two different contexts in Africa? What made secession possible in Eritrea and Southern Sudan? The research experience of Arnaud Yombo is interesting in understanding and answering all these questions. 

About the speaker: Eugene Arnaud Yombo Sembe is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at HUMA – Institute for Humanities in Africa, University of Cape Town, South Africa. He holds a MA and PhD in Political Science from the University of Yaoundé II, Cameroon, and an MSc in Governance from the Panafrican University in Cameroon (Institute of Governance and Regional Integration). He has been a guest researcher at the University of Nantes, France, and the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala, Sweden. Eugene has collaborated with Institut de recherche pour le developpement (IRD), Centre population et developpement (CEPED) and the University of Paris Descartes on the SAFIRE project targeting research funding in the Sahel. He was a policy analyst on governance and democracy at the Nkafu Policy Institute in Cameroon and the African Ambassador of the International Association of Political Science Students (IAPSS). Eugene has published on migration, terrorism, elections and regional integration processes in Africa. At HUMA, his research focuses on analysing how particular uses of artificial intelligence in Cameroon contribute to the protection of human life while at the same time accompanying and correcting what is framed as ‘human deficiencies’.