DEPARTMENT OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Interests

Research Interest(s): Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa; global Islam; transnationalism; Islamic Thought; Middle East; State and society in Africa.

Program Area(s): Comparative Politics

Regional Specialization(s): Middle East; Africa

Subfield Specialties: Comparative Historical Analysis

Joint Appointment

Program of African Studies

Biography

Zekeria Ahmed Salem (PhD, Sciences-Po. Lyon, 1996) is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University and Director of The Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought in Africa (ISITA) in the Program of African Studies. With a focus on North and West Africa, Salem’s research explores the interplay between Islamic knowledge, social change and political power. His first book, Prêcher dans le Desert. Islam politique et changement social en Mauritanie (Paris, Karthala, 2013) explores how individuals and groups from slave descent (known locally as Haratin) harness piety and newly acquired Islamic knowledge to claim religious authority and challenge political power in the “Islamic Republic of Mauritania”, a little-known country straddling the Maghreb and West Africa. Please see link to book reviews below.

Salem’s other research output appeared in several edited volumes as well as academic journals such as: The Canadian Journal of African Studies; The Middle East Report; Project on Middle East Political Science; Cahiers d’Etudes Africaines ; Politique Africaine ; Nomadic Peoples ; La Pensée ; Annuaire de l’Afrique du Nord…

Zekeria Ahmed Salem is currently completing a new manuscript provisionally titled: Islamic Knowledge Unbound: Saharan learning tradition and the making of global religious authority (19th-21th century). The book documents the histories and politics of knowledge production and performance in global Islam through an exploration of the transnational careers and political impact of highly mobile West Saharan traditionally trained Islamic scholars (ulama), the global reach of their scholarship as well the international attractiveness of their desert-bound religious seminaries (Maḥāẓīr, sing. Maḥẓārā) for an increasing global stream of seekers of "traditional" Islamic knowledge.

 

BOOKS:

• Prêcher dans le désert. Islam Politique et Changement Social ( Karthala, Paris, 2013). English translation forthcoming under the title: Preaching in The Desert: Political Islam and Social change in Mauritania.
• Read reviews in the Canadian Journal of African Studies, Journal of North African Stuides, and The New York Review of Books.
• Trajectoires d’un Etat-frontière. Espaces, évolutions politiques et transformation s sociales en Mauritanie, edited volume (Codesria, 2004).

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS:

• Co-editor (with Ousmane Kane, Harvard Divinity School): Africa, Globalization, and the Muslim Worlds. Special Issue: Religions. 2021. 12(11), 2021.
• "‘Hands Off My Citizenship!’ Biometrics and its Politics in Mauritania." In Identification and Citizenship in Africa. Biometrics, the Documentary State and Bureaucratic Writings of the Self. Edited by Séverine Awenengo Dalberto and Richard Banégas. London: Routledge. Pp. 203-220, 2021.
• “Global Shinqit. Mauritania’s Islamic Knowledge tradition and the making of transnational religious authority (Nineteenth to Twenty-First Century)”. Religions 212(7), 515, 2021.
• “The Importance of Mauritanian Scholars in Global Islam”. Middle East Report. Special Issue 298 "Maghreb from the Margins". 04/202, 2020.
• “Rethinking the weak state paradigm in light of the war on terror: Evidence from The Islamic Republic of Mauritania” in Project on the Middle East Political Science Studies 40. Special issue “Africa and the Middle East: Beyond the Divides”. George Washington University (June 2020).
• “Controlled Democratization, Institutional Reforms and Political (In)-stability in Mauritania” IN Democratic Struggle, Institutional Reform and State resilience in the African Sahe, edited by Rahmane Idrissa and Leonardo A. Villalon (eds.). Lanham MD, Rowman & Littlefield, 2020: 27-54.
• « Touche pas à ma nationalité » : enrôlement biométrique et controverses sur l’identification en Mauritanie”, Politique africaine, 2018/4 (n° 152) : 77 à 99.
• “What is the concept of “radicalization” good for?”, Politique africaine, 2018/1 (No 149)- Introduction to the theme (with Roland Marchal).
• “The politics of The Haratins Social Movement in Mauritania (1978-2014)” in Osama Abi-Mershed (ed), Social Currents in North Africa (London & New York, Hurst Publishers, January 2018).
• “Les mutations paradoxales de l’Islamisme en Mauritanie,” Cahiers d'études africaines n°206-207 (June 2012): 635-664.
• “The paradoxes of Islamic Radicalization in Mauritania”, in George Joffe (ed.) Islamic Activism in The Maghreb. Politics and Process (London: Routledge, 2011):179.
• “Bare-foot activists. Transformations of The Haratines Movement in Mauritania”, in Stephen Ellis and W.M.J. van Kessel (eds.), Movers and Shakers: Social Movements in Africa (Leiden: Brill, African dynamics, vol. 8), 2009: 156-177.
• “Islam in Mauritania Between Political Expansion and Globalization: Elites, Institutions, Knowledge, and Networks”, in Benjamin Soares and René Otayek, (eds.), Islam and Muslim Politics in Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007): 27-46.
• “Mauritania: A Saharan Frontier State”, The Journal of North African Studies, 10, Issue 3/4 (September, 2005 ): 491–506.
• “Prêcher dans le désert: l’Univers du Cheikh Sidi Yahya et l’évolution de l’Islamisme mauritanien,” Islam et Sociétés au Sud du Sahara n.14-15 (2001-2002): 5-40.

COURSES TAUGHT AT NORTHWESTERN:

Graduate Seminars:

• Interdisciplinary African Studies Graduate Seminar (Yearly).
• Modern Islamic Political Thought.

Undergraduate:

• • POLI-SCI 395: Religion and Politics in Africa.
  • POLI-SCI 359: Politics of Africa.
  • POLI-SCI 250: Introduction to Comparative Politics
  • POLI-SCI 390 : Muslim Politics