Professor Rita Abrahamsen joins the African Studies Centre

The African Studies Centre is very pleased to announce that Professor Rita Abrahamsen (University of Ottawa) has been appointed to the Professorship of African Studies. Rita is an internationally renowned interdisciplinary scholar of African politics and international relations. Her wide-ranging research is centrally concerned with Africa’s position in global affairs, often focusing on the intersection of the global and the local. She has published widely on democracy, security, militarism, Pan-Africanism, and the rise of the radical right.  Her books include  Disciplining Democracy: Development Discourse and Good Governance in Africa (2000); Security beyond the State: Private Security in International Politics (2011); Conflict and Security in Africa (2013); and most recently World of the Right: Radical Conservatism and Global Order (2024). She is currently writing her next monograph, on the unique position of South Africa and the Afrikaner minority in the political imaginaries of the global radical right. Professor Abrahamsen will take up the Chair in January 2026.