Professor Laura Seay will give a talk about “Understanding Violence in Central Africa” at 11 a.m. Friday, Nov. 9, in Colby College’s Chase Center, in the Bill and Joan Alfond Main Street Commons on Main Street in Waterville, according to a news release from the Mid Maine Global Forum. Those who attend are asked to enter the door on Main Street.
Seay is an assistant professor of Government at the college. Her research is centered around the study of community responses to conflict and U.S. foreign policy in Africa’s Great Lakes region. She is writing a book “Substituting for the State,” about the role non-state actors play in governing the eastern DRC in response to the Congolese state’s weakness in North Kivu, South Kivu and Ituri, according to the release.
She also is engaged in a new project on the effects of U.S. legislation designed to mitigate conflict in central Africa and in 2014. She is leading an impact evaluation of a large community-based reconstruction governance intervention in four Congolese provinces. Her research and teaching interests include qualitative and mixed methods, African politics and development, and post-conflict state reconstruction. She has also worked with the World Bank in Nigeria on efforts to improve the national primary health care system through evaluating the implementation of a results-based finance system, with particular attention to reducing instances of maternal, infant and child mortality by removing demand-side barriers to system access.
At Colby, Seay teaches African politics, conflict and research methods. She blogs about African politics, development, and security at Texas in Africa and am a contributor to the Duck of Minerva, the Christian Science Monitor’s Africa Monitor blog, and The Atlantic.com, according to the release.
Lunch will be provided by Jorgensen’s for $12. Participants are welcome to bring their own lunch or just attend the talk.
Lunch choices: Chicken pesto wrap, roast beef sandwich, or a vegetarian wrap (humus plus vegetables). Served with soup, coffee, tea and a cookie. Those who order lunch are responsible for the cost unless canceled 24 hours prior to the talk.
To register, email Steve Knight at midmaineglobalforum@gmail.com or call 689-8462 by noon Thursday, Nov. 8.
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