Associate researchers

David
LEYLE

Geographer

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PhD in development geography, specialised in the assessment and management of environmental and social risks, including involuntary resettlement of populations, and in the design and management of socio-economic observatories, David is a recognised expert in social and societal engineering. Over the past 20 years, he has participated in the development of information and evaluation systems for the CNRS (French National Institute for Scientific Research), various NGOs, mining companies, consulting firms and for the French Development Agency (AFD). Mainly in Africa, but also in the Maghreb, the Middle East and in Asia, he has developed deep experience regarding the management of intercultural and multi-partner projects, such as socio-economic baseline studies, or environmental and social impact assessments, among others. He has published in international scientific journals and communicates about his research in international conferences. In particular, he coordinated in 2012 the Atlas of Voluntary and Solidarity Commitments at international level.

Pascal
REY

Agronomist – Geographer

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Agro-economist and holder of a PhD in Development Geography, Pascal has over 15 years of experience in Africa, Asia and South America, gathered by working in community development and development research programmes with the French National Scientific Research Centre (CNRS), International funders and mining companies. He has developed an approach based on the understanding of local power relations in order to understand the methods of land management at micro-local scales. Pascal combines both field expertise and an up-to-date knowledge of leading issues in development policies. His work is regularly published in scientific journals and reviews, in particular on issues related to land rights, natural resource management, decision-making processes, justice conceptions and CSR in the extractive sector. He gives lectures at the Sorbonne University (Paris I) and the University of Djibouti on urban planning, research methodology and the extractive sector in Africa.

Angela KRONENBURG-GARCIA

Anthropologist

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Angela holds a PhD from Wageningen University (2015) and a degree in cultural anthropology from Leiden University. She has worked on various positions at Leiden University, the Leiden African Studies Centre, the Utrecht University and the University of Louvain. Her research has focused on land-use change, political ecology and access, land and forest tenure, natural-resource conflict, and emerging land-use frontiers. She has carried out long-term ethnographic research among the agro-pastoral Loita Maasai in Kenya. Her most recent work has focused on northern Mozambique, where she studied the investors of large-scale agricultural and forestry investments, and followed public consultations for mining-induced resettlement. Based in Maputo, Mozambique, she is currently a postdoc researcher in a research project from the University of Padua on wetlands in drylands for which she will conduct fieldwork in Mozambique and Sudan.

Angela is co-chair of the “Conflict, natural-resource use and institutions” working group of the “Drylands Facing Change: Interdisciplinary Research on Climate Change, Food Insecurity, Political Instability” EU-COST Action research network. She also co-leads the Social Sciences Extreme Events Research Network “Covid-19 in African and Asian Drylands” working group (Natural Hazards Center, University of Colorado-Boulder).

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Marie
MAZALTO

Sociologist

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PhD in sociology at the University of Québec in Montréal (UQAM), in collaboration with Cirad, Marie has worked more than 10 years as a researcher on behalf of the Research Group on Mining Activities in Africa (GRAMA), based at UQAM, Canada. She has published several articles, book chapters and participated as a guest at international conferences on the themes of governance and reform of the African mining sectors. For more than 10 years, she has been an independent consultant. She has worked in the Central African Republic, DR Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Guinea, on behalf of USAID and UNDP, as well as various consulting firms such as Insuco, TetraTech, PWC, etc. She has specialized in the realization of social impact assessment and the question of CSR issue in the mining sector.

Joana
ROQUE DE PINHO

Environmental anthropologist

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Joana is an environmental anthropologist (PhD, Colorado State University) with over 15 years of research experience on social-ecological systems and local knowledge of environmental change in East and West Africa. Working with Kenyan pastoralist and Bissau-Guinean farmers, in communities undergoing land use and tenure changes, she has investigated local knowledge of climate change, impacts of conservation policies, human-wildlife relationships, communities-protected areas interactions, non-economic valuation of the environment, and conflicts for access to natural resources. She is experienced in and most passionate about engaging local community members as co-researchers through participatory visual research methods (Photovoice and participatory filmmaking).
Joana is currently co-Chair of the “Climate Change & Food Security” Working Group of the “Drylands Facing Change: Interdisciplinary Research on Climate Change, Food Insecurity, Political Instability” COST Action (CA16233) research network (https://www.cost.eu/actions/CA16233). She also leads the Social Sciences Extreme Events Research Network “Covid-19 in African and Asian Drylands” Working Group (Natural Hazards Centers, University of Colorado-Boulder).

Mathieu
FRIBAULT

Anthropologist-Ethnologist

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Socio-anthropologist and ethnologist (EHESS / CNRS), Mathieu has been working in West Africa for more than fifteen years, particularly in Guinea. His work falls within the field of techniques and conceptions of nature and Mathieu is particularly interested in socio-technical innovation processes and socio-cultural and environmental changes. He has evolved in different programs where he has been able to specialize in history and orality, and traditional forms of power and land tenure. His research interests currently concern heritage, particularly processes associating natural spaces with religious and ritual practices (PCI), the analysis of socio-environmental transitions, communication and awareness in transcultural contexts and social crises.

Luigi
ARNALDI DI BALME

Anthropologist

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Africanist anthropologist, trained at Geneva IUED, Luigi has specialized in the understanding of local principles of land tenure and natural resource management. His work experience has addressed infrastructure and pastoral areas management, as well as conservation projects. In recent years, his interests include mining related issues, at both industrial and artisanal scales.

Luigi spent 15 years working in West Africa, most of which in Burkina Faso. Former Research Director at Laboratoire Citoyennetés (Ouagadougou), he was research fellow at the IRD (UMR GRED) during the same period. He has conducted studies for international cooperation agencies, research institutes and private firms in Burkina Faso, Guinea, Senegal, Chad, Niger and Djibouti.

Cristiano
LANZANO

Anthropologist

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Cristiano is a social anthropologist. He has studied and worked as researcher and lecturer at the universities of Torino and Genova (Italy), and is currently Senior Researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute in Uppsala (Sweden). He has also worked as associate researcher for several development projects in Italy, for the Laboratoire Citoyennetés in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), and as a consultant for Insuco and for Altromercato (an Italian fair trade organisation).

He has conducted anthropological and ethnographic research on youth in urban contexts (Senegal), on gender relations and rural development (Burkina Faso, Senegal), and on natural resources management and protected areas (Burkina Faso). Since 2012, he has been deepening his studies regarding the mining sector, particularly regarding the (in)formal governance and the production in artisanal mining sites (Burkina Faso, Guinea).

Martina CAVICCHIOLI

Anthropologist

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Martina has a PhD in Social and Cultural Anthropology from the Goethe University of Frankfurt (Germany). Her research interests revolve around smallholder economies, land rights, farming knowledge, and food security from a gender perspective. Since 2010, she has been conducting research in West Africa, where she has applied her anthropological expertise, first to the field of international development through the collaboration with projects on education, gender equity, and microfinance (2010-2014) and later through in-depth ethnographic fieldwork. Her doctoral research in Burkina Faso (2016-2017) provides a gender perspective on the impact of sociopolitical and environmental factors on decision-making in agriculture. Martina has also received training in soil science at the ISRIC-World Soil Information (Netherlands) and KU-Leuven (Belgium), where she earned a certification in soil analysis and classification in tropical ecosystems. 

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