Dr. Louisa Lombard

Biography

Louisa Lombard is an Associate Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Yale University. She is a cultural anthropologist focusing on African borderland areas where the state is largely absent. Her research explores how various actors govern these contexts and how people navigate fragile relationships of trust when claiming access to resources and authority. Her main fieldwork interlocutors include men-in-arms, anti-poaching guards, rebels, and soldiers. She has authored significant works such as 'State Rebellion: Violence Intervention Central African Republic' (2016) and 'Hunting Game: Raiding Politics Central African Republic' (2020). Currently, she is completing a book manuscript on the ethical dilemmas faced by military peacekeepers in Africa as they attempt to intervene aggressively for humanitarian aims, such as protecting civilians. Lombard co-convenes the MacMillan Center's Political Violence Legacies workshop and is a member of the Executive Board for the Program in Agrarian Studies. She is also a co-editor for the HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory and has published various articles examining the intersection of locality, violence, and sovereignty in central African contexts.

Research Interests