School of Social and Political Science

Background

Qualifications

BA Hons (Cape Town), MA (London), PhD (London), FRHistS

Position

Professor of Comparative African History

Google scholar page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TqI0uDsAAAAJ&hl=en

Research Gate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Paul_Nugent2

Outline Biography

I am a graduate of the University of Cape Town (first degree and first postgraduate degree, 1980-83) and holder of a Masters and a doctorate from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. I held a temporary lectureship in Comparative Politics at the University of Keele in 1987/88, before taking up a Lectureship in African History at Edinburgh. I was promoted to Reader in 2003 and Professor in 2005. I was the Director of the Centre of African Studies for ten years and was formerly co-Director of the Edinburgh International Development Centre.

Externally, I was the President of AEGIS, the Centre-based African Studies association in Europe between 2008 and 2015, As such, I have been intimately involved in the European African Studies scene. In 2014/15, I was a Fellow of the Stellenbosch Institute of Advanced Study (STIAS) working on a project on South African wine and global connectivity. Over 2015/16, I was privileged to be a Member of the Institute of Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, working on a comparison of borders and state-making in Ghana and Uganda. I am a former Visiting Professor at the University of Johannesburg.

I have been the holder of a European Research Council Advanced Grant (€2.5 million over 5 years) for a multi-regional comparative project entitled  African Governance and Space: Transport Corridors, Border Towns and Port Cities in Transition (AFRIGOS). The project began in January 2016 and ended in June 2022, following a COVID extension. See http://www.cas.ed.ac.uk/research/grants_and_projects/afrigos

I was recently the PI for a collaborative project funded by the British Academy, on Border Festivals, Divided Communities and Practical Governance in West Africa. This is a collaboration with colleagues in Edinburgh (Jose-Maria Muñoz), the University of Ghana (Samuel Ntewusu Aniegye and Edem Adotey), l'Université de Lomé (Kokou Azamede), the University of Cagliari (Isabella Soi) and George Washington University (Elaine Peña). The Knowledge Exchange dimensions of the project are being supported by the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Science.

Teaching

• Postgraduate: Research in Africa
• Postgraduate: Consumption in Africa: History, Personhood and Identity
• Postgraduate: Modern Africa (African Studies, core course - not running)
• Postgraduate: Slavery, Forced Labour and Identity in African History (History option - not running)
• Postgraduate: Gender and Imperialism (History option - not running)
• Undergraduate: Slavery, Community and the State in West Africa c.1700-1910 (History Option)
• Undergraduate: Ghana: From Colonialism to Socialism (History Option)
• Undergraduate: Ethnicity, Class and Power in Twentieth-Century Africa c.1880-1983 (History 4MA)
• Undergraduate: Wine in Global History: Regulation, Consumption and Contention (History option) 

I was previously external examiner for the History Tripos at the University of Cambridge and for the Masters in African Studies in Oxford.

Publications

New in 2024

'Turning water into wine: The curious history of terroir in South Africa', Environmental History  29 (3) 2024, 432-542, https://doi.org/10.1086/730812

Race, Taste and the Grape in South Africa: The Cape Wine Industry in a Global Perspective (CUP, April 2024), 
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009184274

'Sour grapes and sweet harmony: harmonizing collective action problems in the South African wine industry', Journal of Wine Economics 2024 (online first), 2024:1-9.  doi:10.1017/jwe.2023.24 

Olivier Walther, Paul Nugent and Susanna Goewey, 'The impact of transport policies of road accessibility in Ghana (2010-2019)' African Geographical Review 2024 (online first), https://doi.org/10.1080/19376812.2024.2309385

Under Review

'Border festivals, closures and practical governance: a comparison of Agabamevoza (Agotime) and Godigbeza (Aflao) on the Ghana-Togo border'

Recent Publications 

Walther OJ, Amilhat Szary AL, Brambilla C, Brunet-Jailly E, Klatt M, Laine JP et al. Border studies at 45. Political Geography. 2023 Jun;104:102909. Epub 2023 May 14. doi: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.102909

with Hugh Lamarque (eds.),  Transport Corridors in Africa (James Currey, 2022), including:

Paul Nugent and Hugh Lamarque, 'Transport corridors in Africa: synergy, slippage and sustainability'

Paul Nugent , 'When is a corridor just a road? Understanding thwarted ambitions along the Abidjan-Lagos Corridor'

'Lomé and Aflao: ambivalent affinity at the Ghana-Togo border', in J. Garrard and E. Mikhailova (eds.), Twin Cities: Borders, Urban Communities and Relationships Over Time (Routledge, December 2021).

"Making borders, closing frontiers and identifying smuggling: comparative histories", in Max Gallien and Florian Weigand (eds.),The Routledge Handbook of Smuggling (Routledge, December 2021).

'Nationalism and decolonization in the Gold Coast' (book chapter),  Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of African History, (31 August 2021)https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.616

(with Falisse J-B, Macdonald R, Molony T), 'Why have so many African leaders died of COVID-19?' BMJ Global Health. 2021 May 17;6(5):1-6. e005587. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2021-005587

(with) Gildfred Asiamah, Thomas Molony and Edem Selormey,  COVID-19 and Ghana's 202 Elections (March 2021), https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/admin/editor/dk/atira/pure/api/shared/model/r…

(with Isabella Soi), 'One-Stop Border Posts in East Africa: state encounters of the fourth kind,  Journal of Eastern African Studies, published online 26 May 2020,  https://doi.org/10.1080/17531055.2020.1768468

'Symmetry and affinity: comparing borders and boundary-making processes in Africa', in Didier Fassin (ed.),  Deepening Divides: How Territorial Borders and Social Boundaries Delineate Our World. Pluto, 2020.

'Seeing the trees for the wood: the environmental and human consequences of partition in the Senegambian borderlands', in Werner Zips and Manuela Zips-Maritsch (ed.),  The Economy of Conservation: Livings Museums and Community-Based Development in African Borderlands (Lit Verlag, 2019).

Boundaries, Communities and State-Making in West Africa: The Centrality of the Margins (Cambridge University Press, June 2019), ISBN: 978-1107622500 (hbk), 978-1107622500 (pbk)

'Lomé and Aflao: a special relationship', in Sahel and West Africa Club & OECD  Population and Morphology of Border Cities (Paris: OECD Publishing, 2019), pp.54-55

'Border Politics', in  Oxford Encyclopedia of African Politics. Oxford University Press (2019), doi:  http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.730

'Border studies: temporality, space and scale', in Matthias Middell (eds.)  Handbook of Transregional Studies, Routledge History Handbooks (Routledge, 2018), ISBN 9781138718364

'Africa's re-enchantment with big infrastructure: white elephants dancing in virtuous circles?', in Jon Schubert, Ulf Engel and Elisio Macamo (eds.),  Extractive Industries and Changing State Dynamics in Africa: Beyond the Resource Curse (Routledge, 2018),  https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351200639-2

https://www.routledge.com/Extractive-Industries-and-Changing-State-Dynamics-in-Africa-Beyond-the/Schubert-Engel-Macamo/p/book/9780815391845

Isabella Soi and Paul Nugent, 'Peripheral urbanism in Africa: border towns and twin towns in Africa',  Journal of Borderlands Studies, 32:4, 2017, pp. 535-556, DOI: 10.1080/08865655.2016.1196601. To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/08865655.2016.1196601 

'Afrika', in H. Heinen et al. (eds.)  Handwörterbuch der Antiken Sklaverei.  Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2017, pp. 58-60.

'Alcohol in Africa' web dossier:  http://www.ascleiden.nl/content/webdossiers/alcohol-africa

'The future of states in Africa: prospects for the reordering of space and the remaking of bureaucracies' in "Multiple Futures - Africa, China, Europe", special issue of  Comparativ 26, 2, 2016, pp.75-91.

A Decade of Ghana: Politics, Economy and Society, 2004-13 (with M. Amoah, K. Aning and N. Annan). Leiden: Brill, 2015

'Modernity, tradition and intoxication: comparative lessons from South Africa and West Africa",  in Phil Withington and Angela McShane (eds.),  Cultures of Intoxication,  Past and Present Supplement 9, 2014.

African independence and its others: decolonization and the margins',  Nations and Nationalism 19, 3, July 2013, pp. 442-449.

"Haben nationen einen Magen? Essen, Trinken und vorgestellte Gemeinschaften in Afrika", in Thomas Bierschenk and Eva Spies (eds.) , 50 Jahre Unabhängigkeit in Afrika: Kontinuit ä ten, Brüche, Perspektiven. Köln: Rüdiger Koppe Verlag, 2012.

'Who killed innovation in the Cape wine industry? The story of a stuck fermentation, c.1930-1986', in Jan-Bart Gewald, Andre Leliveld and Iva Pesa (eds.)  Transforming Innovations in Africa: Explorative Studies on Appropriation in African Societies. Leiden: Brill, 2012.

Africa Since Independence: A Comparative History (2nd edition). Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.

2012. 'Border towns and cities in comparative perspective: barriers, flows and governance', in Thomas Wilson and Hastings Donnan (eds.)  A Companion to Border Studies (Blackwell Companion to Anthropology). Oxford: Blackwell

'Autour d'une livre:  Neoliberal Frontiers: An Ethnography of Sovereignty in West Africa'(debate), Politique Africaine 123, October 2011, pp.137-41.

'The temperance movement and wine farmers at the Cape: collective action, racial discourse and legislative reform c.1890-1965',  Journal of African History 52, 2011.

'Bourdieu and De Certeau at the border post: trans-boundary communities, government officials and everyday life in West Africa', in Nikolaus Schareika, Eva Spies and Pierre-Yves Le Meur (eds.),  Auf dem Boden der Tatsachen: Festschrift fur  Thomas Bierschenk. Koln: Rudiger Koeppe Verlag, 2011.

co-edited with Hana Horakova and Peter Skalnik,  Africa: Power and Powerlessness. Berlin: Lit Verlag, 2011.

'Do nations have stomachs? Food, drink and imagined community in Africa',  Africa Spectrum 3, 2010.

'Nkrumah and Rawlings: political lives in parallel?',  Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 12, 2009-2010.

'States and social contracts in Africa',  New Left Review, 63, May-June, 2010.

'The Historicity of Ethnicity: Mandinka/Jola and Ewe/Agotime identities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries' , in Alexander Keese (ed.)  Ethnicity and the Long-Term Perspective. Boston & Berne: Peter Lang, 2010.

'Afrika', in Johannes Deissler (ed.)  Handworterbuch der Antiken Sklaverei. Mainz: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2010.

'The successful Ghana election of 2008: a convenient myth?',  Journal of Modern African Studies 48 (1) 2010, 95-116 (with Heinz Jockers and Dick Kohnert).

co-edited with Ulf Engel. Respacing Africa. Leiden: Brill, 2010.

'Critical African Studies: a voluntarist manifesto',  Critical African Studies, issue 1, 2009

co-edited with Francesca Locatelli,  African Cities: Competing Claims on Urban Spaces. Leiden: Brill, 2009.

'Putting the history back into ethnicity: enslavement, religion and cultural brokerage in the construction of Mandinka/Jola and Ewe/Agotime identities in West Africa, c.1650-1930',  Comparative Studies in Society and History 50 (4) (2008) 920-948.

'Not so much boom towns as trickle towns: a comparison of two West African border towns, Kpetoe (Ghana) and Darsilami (the Gambia)', in Yomi Akinyeye (ed.),  That They May Be One: African Boundaries and Regional Integration - Essays in Honour of Professor Anthony I. Asiwaju. Imeko: African Regional Institute, 2008.

'Border anomalies: the role of local actors in shaping spaces along the Gambia-Senegal and Ghana-Togo borders' in Alice Bellagamaba and Georg Klute (eds.),  Beside the State: Emergent Powers in Contemporary Africa. Cologne: Rudiger Koppe Verlag, 2008.

'Cyclical History in the Gambia/Casamance Borderland: Refuge, Settlement and Islam from c. 1880 to the Present',  Journal of African History 48(2) (2007) 221-243.

'Migracion, fronteras y creacion del Estado: comparacion de los patrones del Africa Occidentale y del Sur",  Nova Africa 20, 2007, 7-26.

'African studies in Britain', in David Dabydeen, John Gilmore and Cecily Jones (eds.),  Oxford Companion to Black British History. Oxford University Press, 2007)

co-edited with Sara Dorman and Dan Hammett, Citizenship in Africa: Making Citizens, Creating Strangers (Brill, 2006).

 'Banknotes and symbolic capital: Ghana's elections under the Fourth Republic', in M. Basedau, G. Erdmann and A. Mehler (eds.),  Votes, Money and Violence: Political Parties and Elections in Sub-Saharan Africa (Nordic Africa Institute, 2006). 

'Les élections Ghanéens de 2004: anatomie d'un systeme bipartite',  Politique Africaine 97 (2005)

‘Borderland identities in comparative perspective: chieftaincy, religion and belonging along the Ghana-Togo and Senegal-Gambia borders’, in Per Hernaes (ed.),  The Role of Tradition and Modernity in African Political Cultures and Urban Conflicts: The Case of Ghana in Comparative Perspective. Trondheim University of Science and Technology, 2005.

'A regional melting-pot: the Ewe and their neighbours in the Ghana-Togo borderlands’, in Benjamin Lawrance et al. (eds.),  The Ewes of Togo and Benin. Accra: Woeli, 2004.

Africa Since Independence: A Comparative History. Palgrave Macmillan, 2004

Smugglers, Secessionists and Loyal Citizens of the Ghana-Togo Frontier: The Lie of the Borderlands Since 1914. James Currey, Ohio University Press and Sub-Saharan Publishers, 2003.

 Co-editor (with Barbara Trudell, Kenneth King and Simon McGrath) of  Africa's Young Majority: Victims, Meanings, Actors (Centre of African Studies, Edinburgh University, 2002).

'Winners, losers and also rans: money, moral authority and voting patterns in the Ghana 2000 election’,  African Affairs 100, 4000 (July 2001).

'The things that money can buy: chieftaincy, the media and the 1996 elections in Hohoe-North constituency’,  Ghana Studies, 4 (2001).

Co-editor (with Carola Lentz) of  Ethnicity in Ghana: The Limits of Invention. Macmillan & St Martin's Press, 2000.

(with Carola Lentz), 'Ethnicity in Ghana: a comparative perspective', in Carola Lentz and Paul Nugent (eds.),  Ethnicity in Ghana: The Limits of Invention. Macmillan & St. Martin's Press, 2000.

‘“A few lesser peoples”: The Central Togo minorities and their Ewe neighbours’, in Carola Lentz and Paul Nugent (eds.),  Ethnicity in Ghana: The Limits of Invention. Macmillan & St. Martin's Press, 2000.

‘Résonances du passé dans les élections de 1992 et 1996’, in Comi M. Toulabor (ed.),  Le Ghana de J.J. Rawlings: restauration de l'état et renaissance du politique. Paris: Karthala, 2000.

‘The art of dissimulation: smugglers, informers and the preventive service along the Ghana-Togo frontier, 1920-1939’, in C. Dubois, M. Michel and P. Soumille (eds.),  Frontières plurielles, frontières conflictuelles en Afrique subsaharienne. Paris: l'Harmattan, 2000).

African Boundaries: Barriers, Conduits and Opportunities (co-edited with A.I. Asiwaju),  African Boundaries: Barriers, Conduits and Opportunities. London and New York: Frances Pinter, 1996.

Big Men, Small Boys and Politics in Ghana: Power, Ideology and the Burden of History, 1982-1994. London and New York: Frances Pinter, 1996. 

And Also...

I also maintain a blog on wine and borders: http://bordersandwine.wordpress.com/

For an interesting discovery of the link between wine and jazz, see: http://electricjive.blogspot.com/2011/03/jazz-royalty-swinging-bittersw…