Hannah Abdullahi

Hannah (she/her) is a Malagasy-Somali doctoral researcher in Development Studies at SOAS. Her current research project on women’s political participation in Madagascar is funded by the Consortium for the Humanities and the Arts South-East England (CHASE). She holds a master’s degree in Globalisation and Development (SOAS, UK) and a bachelor’s degree in Social Sciences (Humboldt-University, Germany).   As a research assistant, she has worked at the department of African Studies at the Humboldt-University of Berlin on African literature and history, and at the faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences at the University of Amsterdam on democratic representation. She was a research fellow on food security (funded by the German Academic Exchange Service, DAAD) for non-governmental organisations in Haiti and Peru.   She further works in Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in higher education. She is currently the research communications officer of the Ebony Initiative which aims to recognise the excellence of black scholars, and advance decolonised knowledge production and educational justice at SOAS. Prior to SOAS, she worked at the University of East London (UEL).

Hannah’s current research project addresses contemporary conceptualisations of political participation, gender and development (GAD) within the context of Madagascar. The project attempts to re-envision constructions of political participation that speak to the lives of Malagasy women. Unravelling Madagascar’s tradition and culture, it seeks to understand how they influence women’s political roles. The research study aims to draw from women’s voices and experiences to conceptualise forms of political participation present in formal, informal spaces and those beyond and in-between. Her research project investigates how Malagasy women’s political engagement disrupts GAD frames and interventions, and how their experiences offer insights on transforming gendered power relations, and alternative forms of emancipation. The study draws on decolonial and African feminist interpretative frames to discuss these questions.