Research Interests:

• Saharan economic history (special reference to salt industries)
• Slavery and ‘non-free’ labour (Islamic world, especially the Sahara)
• Mauritania (social and economic history)
• ‘orality’ as historical methodology
• ‘power’ as articulated culture in the Sahara

Current projects:

• “Salt and Saharans” (book manuscript)
• “Saharan political economy in the early Atlantic Slave trade (16th century)” (invited paper for
  workshop on Atlantic Trade into Virginia, University of Virginia 2004)
• “Snapshots from the Sahara (17th-18th centuries): salt the essence of being Saharan” (revisions
  to paper delivered conference on “Natural resources and cultural heritage of the Libyan
  Desert”, Tripoli, Libya December 2002)

Teaching Interests:

• Islam (in early globalization, in Africa)
• Middle East (origins in rise and decline of Ottoman Empire)
• Modern/contemporary Africa
• Slavery (in comparative perspective; in Muslim Africa)
• Orality

Publications:

• “Discourses and Distortions: Critical Reflections on Studying the Saharan Slave Trade”, Revue
  Française d'Histoire d'Outre Mer special issue "Traites et esclavages : vieux problèmes,
  nouvelles perspectives ?", (December, 2002):55-87.
• “The Politics of Sorcery and Slavery: colonial ‘reality’ in central Mauritania (1910-1960)”,
  Chris Youé and Tim Stapleton (eds), Agency in Action in Colonial Africa: Essays in
  Honour of John Flint, Macmillan, Basingstoke, England; St. Martin’s Press, New York,
  Spring 2001)
• “A Sense of Self: the Life of Fatma Barka (North/West Africa)” Canadian Journal of African
  Studies , 32, 2 (1998): 398-412.
• “Islam: an overview,” pp. 434-39 (vol. 1), “North Africa: Morocco”, pp. 643-46 (vol. 2) “The
  Sahara,” pp. 646-49 (vol. 2); in Paul Finkleman & Joseph C. Miller (eds). Encyclopedia of
  World Slavery (New York, Macmillan Reference, 1998)
• “Research in Saharan History”, Review Article Journal of African History 39/3 /98, 467-480