Natasja Rupesinghe honored with best dissertation award
The prize is presented each year by the British International Studies Association (BISA) for the top PhD thesis in international studies, and is named in honor of the late professor of international relations, Michael Nicholson.
Rupesinghe earned her doctorate at the University of Oxford while also being affiliated with NUPI through the FRIPRO project JIGOV-Sahel, which examines how jihadist insurgent groups govern in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, and Nigeria.
“It’s a tremendous honor to receive this award and to have my work recognized in this way. I’m especially grateful for the support I received through the JIGOV-Sahel project at NUPI, which made it possible to carry out demanding fieldwork,” says Rupesinghe.
Community responses to jihadist mobilisation in central Mali
Rupesinghe’s dissertation, Community Responses to Jihadist Mobilisation in Central Mali, explores how communities in central Mali responded to the rise of a local jihadist battalion called the Katiba Macina, which is affiliated to the jihadist group Jama'at Nusrat ul-Islam wa al-Muslimin (JNIM). Today, JNIM is the most influential jihadist rebel group in Mali and the Sahel.
Mali’s war started in the north but soon moved south. By 2015, central Mali had become the main battleground.
“My research looks at how rural communities coped with escalating violence. The key question is why some chose to collaborate with the jihadists while others resisted, often by forming self-defense groups or militias,” she explains.
The dissertation challenges prevailing explanations, which tend to emphasize religion, economic gain, or ethnic divisions as drivers of recruitment. Instead, Rupesinghe shows that local disputes and the dynamics of the war itself were crucial in shaping whether communities decided to collaborate with or resist the insurgents.
“I’m deeply thankful to my research partners in Mali and to all the Malians I interviewed. They shared with me their experiences of the war, often while living through very difficult circumstances. My hope is that this dissertation can help shed light on a conflict we still know far too little about,” Rupesinghe says.
The jury’s statement
"This is an outstanding thesis. Based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork in difficult terrain, Rupesinghe presents a micro-analysis of how local communities engage with insurgents in civil wars, highlighting the importance of local grievances, political economies and the changing dynamics of war. As well as its rich empirical contribution and methodological rigour, the thesis develops an original framework of how communities respond to violence. It contributes important theoretical advancements to literatures on inter-ethnic and communal violence, community agency in civil wars, and the political economy of conflict. Taken together, this is an exceptionally impressive and well-rounded piece of work."