William Miles – Niger’s Coup in Context: A Four-Decade Retrospective from the World's Poorest Country

Events

William Miles – Niger’s Coup in Context: A Four-Decade Retrospective from the World's Poorest Country

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

12:00pm – 1:30pm

Birkelund Board Room (140), Watson Institute, 111 Thayer Street

William Miles first came to Niger as a Peace Corps Volunteer in the 1970s. He was last there during the July 2023 coup d’état. Locked down and eventually evacuated by the French Air Force, he will share his reflections on the coup and its implications in light of his forty + years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Niger-Nigeria borderlands and research into governance and counterterrorism in West Africa.

William Miles is Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University and a 2021-2023 Fulbright Global Scholar. A fluent speaker of French and Hausa, Prof. Miles has participated in State Department briefings for four U.S. ambassadors to Niger. His Niger-themed books include Hausaland Divided: Colonialism and Independence in Nigeria and Niger and My African Horse Problem.