School of Social and Political Science

Background

Qualifications

• PhD in Development Studies, SOAS, University of London (With a focus on agrarian and feminist political economy)
• MSc/Research for International Development, Specializing in African Economic Development, SOAS, University of London
• Fellowship of the UK Higher Education Academy
• Postgraduate Certificate of Academic Practice (PG CAP) Higher Education from the University of Edinburgh 
• MA International Cooperation & Development AND Risks Management in Developing Countries, Science Po Bordeaux- IEP, France
• Maîtrise in Political Science, Université Montesquieu, Bordeaux, France
• BSc/Economic & Social Administration (AES) (Economics, Sociology, Politics and Management) Specialising in Labour, Université De La Méditerranée, Aix – Marseille, France

Research, Academic Leadership and Policy Experience

Born and raised in Senegal (French-Speaking West Africa), I am a Lecturer in African Studies and International Development at the University of Edinburgh since January 2019 and a Fellow of the UK Higher Education Academy. I have worked with several African economic development organisations before joining academia. This rich policy and research background allows me to ground my research and teaching in my lived work experience in African contexts. 

My main research interests are land, labour, social reproduction, accumulation and agrarian transformations , at the intersections of critical feminist political economy and critical agrarian studies with a focus on Senegalese / West African agri-food systems.  My research also focuses on African feminisms, social movements,  care and parenting, and the politics of development in Africa. I have edited a book of interviews on African feminisms and a book on Feminist Parenting. 

I am an Adjunct Senior Lecturer (Honorary) of the Mandela School of Public Governance, University of Cape Town, South Africa and a Research Associate at the Laboratoire dec Recherches sur les Transformations Sociales en Afriques (LARTES/IFAN(University Cheikh Anta Diop, Senegal). I am the co-convenor of the DSA Land, Politics & Sustainability Study group, and serve on the boards of the UK Development Studies Association (DSA) and the African Studies Association.

Before CAS, I worked in policy-oriented research at the Dakar-based African Institute for Economic Development and Planning (IDEP), United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (5 years), and at the United Nations: at the UNDP Office in Mauritius and Seychelles.  In the UK, I coordinated a Leverhulme-funded Research Network involving Universities in the UK and in Africa (Ghana, South Africa, Senegal and Kenya). I served on the Board of FRIDA (the Young Feminist Fund) and collaborated with several Feminist Political economy research networks in Africa and the Global South. 

I obtained my PhD in Development Studies from SOAS, University of London as a Mo Ibrahim Governance and Development in Africa Scholar. My PhD thesis focused on the differentiated agrarian change outcomes of selected horticultural projects in Northern Senegal during what has been dubbed “the land rush” or "the contemporary land grabs" looking at capitalist accumulation, dispossession and labour dynamics.

Journal Editorial Roles

Editorial working Group, Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE)

Editorial Advisory team , Feminist Theory Journal

International Advisory team, Journal of Peasant Studies

Editorial team member, African Geographical Review

Editorial team member, Politique Africaine

Teaching

I am the convenor of Analysing Development (online) and Advanced Issues in the Political Economy of Development. I am also the outgoing Programme Director of the MSc Africa & International Development. In the past, I was the co-convenor of Africa in the Contemporary World, Politics and Theories of International Development  and Researching International Development (Online).

Before Edinburgh, I supported the delivery of the following courses as a teaching tutor at SOAS (across Development Studies and Economics Departments): African Economic Development ,Gender and Development,  Comparative Studies in Development, and Understanding Africa Summer School. I also taught as part of the CAS SOAS-Mo Ibrahim Foundation Residential Schools in Governance and Development in several African cities.

PhD supervision

Francisca Anita Adom Opare (African Studies)

Emma Taylor (International Development)

Topics interested in supervising

- Agrarian Change and Agrarian Political economy (Labour, Land and Capitalism) - Rural Development - Care & Social Reproduction - Agriculture, Export horticulture and Global Value Chains, - Food Security - Development Policy, - Governance, the role of the State and social movements in Africa - India in Africa - Gender and Development, - African Feminism(s), Feminist Parenting - Francophone Africa, - West and Central Africa, - Mauritius.

If you are interested in being supervised by Rama Salla Dieng, please see the links below (open in new windows) for more information:

• PhD in African Studies
• PhD in International Development
• MSc (R) African Studies

Selected Publications

Peer-reviewed articles

• Author (2023)Speaking out, talking back? African feminist politics and decolonial poetics of knowing, organising and loving, Review of African Political Economy, DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2023.2284524 
• Author (2023), From Yewwu Yewwi to #FreeSenegal: Class, Gender and Generational Dynamics of Radical Feminist Activism in Senegal. Politics & Gender, 1-7. doi:10.1017/S1743923X2200071X 
• Co-Author (2023),  Centering Feminists and Feminism in Protests in Africa. Politics & Gender, 1-4. doi:10.1017/S1743923X22000769 (with Haastrup, T., & Kang, A. )
• Author (2022) : ‘Adversely Incorporated yet Moving up the Social Ladder?’: Labour Migrants Shifting the Gaze from Agricultural Investment Chains to ‘Care Chains’ in Capitalist Social Reproduction in Senegal
  Rama Salla Dieng
• Co-Editor (2022), Special Issue on Agrarian Change, Food Security, Migration and Sustainable Development in Senegal and Zimbabwe, Africa Development Journal, CODESRIA , Vol. 47, No 3 (2022) (Double Bilingual Special Issue)
• Co-author (2022), Introduction: Agrarian Change, Food Security, Migration and Sustainable Development in Senegal and Zimbabwe Rama Salla Dieng, Geoffrey Banda, Walter Chambati
• DIENG, R. S. (2017) ‘Land grabbing’ & the politics of evidence: The case of Senegal in Africa Insight 46 (4) Investment on Land or Land Grabbing? Land Reform, Agricultural Production and Food Security in Africa

Books

• Co-editor, TOURE, K. , THAKER, R. , and DIENG, R.S (February 2024), Decolonize, Humxnize . Bamenda: Langaa.
• Co-Author, DIENG, R.S (2023 ): Gagner le Monde, Quelques Héritages Féministes, La Fabrique Éditions, Paris (with Zahra Ali, Silvia Federici, Veronica Gago, Lola Olufemi, Djamila Ribeiro, and Sayak Valencia)
• Co-Editor, DIENG, R. S., O'REILLY, A. (2020) ‘Feminist Parenting: Perspectives from Africa and beyond, Demeter Press (book launch video: https://youtu.be/GhMGAxkpUgM) (Peer-reviewed collection)
• Author of Féminismes Africains: Une histoire Décoloniale (Présence Africaine, Paris, 2021) 

Book chapters

• Dieng, R. S. and OSSOME, L. ( 2024). Feminist political economy, Land, and Decolonisation in Africa and the Global South. In TOURE, K. , THAKER, R. , and DIENG, R.S (February 2024),  (Eds.), Decolonize, humxnize (chapter 5). Bamenda: Langaa.
• DIENG, R. S. (2019) ‘Gone Native?’: Reflections of a feminist tightrope walker’s research on ‘land grabbing’ and the dilemmas of ‘Fieldworking while Parenting at home', in Jackson, R. & Kelly, M. Women Researching in Africa. The Impact of Gender, Palgrave , ISBN 978-3-319-94502-6
• DIENG, R. S. (2013) Le rôle de la culture dans le développement en Afrique in the collective book ed. Aboa, Pokam, Sadio et Tandia (Eds) (2013) Démocratie et Développement: Perspectives des Jeunes Chercheurs Africains, L’Harmattan, Paris
• DIENG, R. S. (2009) Polygamy: At the heart of the Matter, published by Gender Links

Book review

• DIENG, R. S. (Nov. 2016) : Ndèye Sokhna Guèye (Ed.) (2015), Mouvements sociaux des femmes au Sénégal in Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy, Vol 5, Issue 1, pp. 126 – 128

Policy article

• DIENG, R. S. (2015) Third Financing for Development Conference: A missed opportunity for African Women in DAWN Informs (Newsletter of Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era (DAWN), August 2015

Public scholarship

• Author: Emancipation that Costs Servitude (on domestic workers in Senegal), Africa is a country, March 2023
• Author: The land does not lie (on The State, the Rural World and Agricultural Modernisation in Senegal), January 2023
• Co-Author: Blackness, Pan-African Consciousness and Women’s Political Organising through the Magazine AWA, African Arguments (with Dr. Korka Sall), January 2023
• Author: The Labour of Land (on land grabs, labour and capitalist accumulation in Senegal), Africa is a Country December 2022
• Autrice: Au-delà de la ruée vers les terres africaines, l’enjeu de la main-d’œuvre, Afrique XXI, Janvier 2023
• Teaching Development, How can we translate ethically sound practice in development-focused research into good teaching? Blog with Dr. Ann Wagner on the UoE FutureProof Collective, 2020
• Race.Ed Launch, Responsive and Creative Pedagogy, July 2020
• Running While Others Walked, Remembering Thandika Mkandawire (1940-2020), Review of African Political Economy (ROAPE.net), also on the website of CODESRIA 2020
• Se souvenir de Thandika Mkandawire (1940-2020), Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) 2020
• Caring, Parenting and Home-Working during COVID 19, on Corona Times, a public engagement project of HUMA, the Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town 2020
• Editorial, The UK's Development Studies Association Newsletter, March 2020

Advocacy: Financing for Development

Women's Working Group on the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (2015)

https://wwgonffd.wordpress.com/2015/07/13/wwg-and-addis-cso-group-address-member-states-at-the-opening-plenary-of-the-ffd-conference/

DAWN - Women's Working Group on the Addis Ababa Action Agenda (2015)

http://dawnnet.org/sites/default/files/articles/2015.07_awg_ffd3_recommendations.pdf

Interview series

In my work, I use a lot semi-structured interviews as a way to co-generate knowledge. I believe in the inclusive power of video and interview based qualitative research methods to render academic knowledge more accessible to a greater (maybe not academic) audience. I believe these digital tools offer us valuable avenues to elicit critical insights and acknowledge and include participatory ways of knowing and sharing.

New interview series, African Feminisms, on AfricaIsACountry

First Interview: Women’s political consciousness in Senegal (Literary Activism in French) with Dr Ruth Bush, Senior Lecturer, University of Bristol (December 2019)

https://africasacountry.com/2019/12/literary-activism-in-french

Talking back: African feminisms in Dialogue - new interview series for the Review of African Political Economy (RoAPE.net) Blog by Rama Dieng

Introduction (November 2019):
http://roape.net/2019/11/01/talking-back-african-feminism-in-dialogue/
 
First interview wIith Dr. Lyn Ossome, MISR, Uganda(November 2019):
http://roape.net/2019/11/07/talking-back-a-conversation-with-lyn-ossome/

Second interview with Hilina Berhanu and Aklile Solomon, The Yellow Movement Addis Ababa University(November 2019):
http://roape.net/2019/11/14/talking-back-hilina-berhanu-and-aklile-solomon/

Third interview with Dr. Divine Fuh, CODESRIA and University of Cape Town (December 2019)

http://roape.net/2019/12/05/talking-back-a-conversation-with-divine-fuh/

Interview with Jessica Horn, Programme Director of the African Woman Development Fund and Writer (January 2020)

Talking Back: an interview with Jessica Horn – ROAPE

Governance and Development in Africa (SOAS Radio):

Governance and Development in Africa with Onyekachi Wambu

http://governanceinafricasoas.org/governance-in-africa-onyekachi-wambu/

Youth and Governance in Africa (RFI Radio):

http://www.rfi.fr/emission/20170409-jeunesse-africaine-richesse-handicap‚Äã

Blog posts and public engagement:

I regularly write blogs/commentaries on Senegalese, Francophone and more generalist media outlets on Literature, Politics, Gender and Women's Rights.

Politics

In Senegal, the left has given up fighting for its ideals - on the Mo Ibrahim Foundation Blog

http://mo.ibrahim.foundation/news/2019/senegal-left-given-fighting-ideals-interview-mif-scholar-rama-salla-dieng

La gauche sénégalaise a renoncé à défendre ses idées (Le Monde Afrique February 2019)

https://www.lemonde.fr/afrique/article/2019/02/16/au-senegal-la-gauche-a-renonce-a-defendre-ses-idees_5424285_3212.html

Courte Histoire de la Gauche Senegalaise

https://www.seneplus.com/opinions/courte-histoire-de-la-gauche-senegalaise

Literature:

Les couleurs de l'Ecrivain, Interview avec Mohamadou Mbougar Sarr

https://www.seneplus.com/culture/la-couleur-de-lecrivain

Novel

• DIENG, Salla (2008), La Dernière Lettre, Présence Africaine