Laura Mann
Laura Mann is an economic sociologist whose research focuses on the political economy of markets and state-building in Africa. She received her Masters and PhD from the Centre of African Studies at the University of Edinburgh and a BSc in Environmental Policy and Economics from the London School of Economics. Before joining the ASC, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford.
Her PhD examined the impact of tertiary education expansion and economic liberalization on trust relations and the flow of information between managers, job-seekers and civil servants in the Sudanese labour market. She then worked on a joint project between the University of Oxford, the University of Nairobi and the National University of Rwanda, examining the effects of broadband internet on the tea, tourism and outsourcing value chains of Kenya and Rwanda. At the ASC, she is developing a project examining how new information and communication technologies are making informal agriculture and transport more visible to African governments and formal businesses.
The domestic turn: business processing outsourcing and the growing automation of Kenyan organisations (2016)
Understanding the political motivations that shape Rwanda's emergent developmental state (2016)
Introduction: global economic inclusion and African workers (2016)
The domestic turn : business processing outsourcing and the growing automation of Kenyan organisations (2015)
Sellers on the street : the human infrastructure of the mobile phone network in Kigali, Rwanda (2015)
Geographies of connectivity in East Africa : trains, telecommunications, and technological teleologies (2015)
The internet and business process outsourcing in East Africa : value chains and connectivity-based enterprises in Kenya and Rwanda (2014)
Big data and positive social change in the developing world : a white paper for practitioners and researchers : Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Centre conference, May 2014 (2014)
Review of D.C. Bach and M. Gazibo (eds.), 'Neopatrimonialism in Africa and beyond' (London and New York, NY : Routledge, 2012) (2014)
Review of T. Kelsall, 'Business, politics and the State in Africa : challenging the orthodoxies on growth and transformation' (London : Zed Books, 2013) (2014)
The digital divide and employment : the case of the Sudanese labour market (2014)
Wasta! : the long term implications of education expansion and economic liberalization on politics in Sudan (2014)
'We do our bit in our own space' : DAL Group and the development of a curiously Sudanese enclave economy (2013)
Imagining a Silicon Valley : technological and conceptual connectivity in Kenya's BPO and software development sectors (2013)
Retreat of the state and the market: liberalisation and education expansion in Sudan under the NCP (2012)
Breeze from an open door : foreign spirits, national bodies and Egyptian imaginative resistance (2009)
Getting a job in Sudan : an exploration into economic trust and social capital (2009)
'The digital divide and employment : the case of the Sudanese labour market'
In: M. Graham; W.H. Dutton: 'Society and the internet : how networks of information and communication are changing our lives', Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014.
'Breeze from an open door : foreign spirits, national bodies and Egyptian imaginative resistance'
In: C. Baker: 'Expressions of the body : representations in African text and image', Oxford: Peter Lang, 2009.
'Introduction: global economic inclusion and African workers'
in: Journal of development studies, vol. 52, no. 4, pp. 471 - 482, 2016.
'The domestic turn: business processing outsourcing and the growing automation of Kenyan organisations'
in: Journal of development studies, vol. 52, no. 4, pp. 530 - 548, 2016.
'Understanding the political motivations that shape Rwanda's emergent developmental state'
in: New political economy, vol. 21, no. 1, pp. 119 - 144, 2016.
'Sellers on the street : the human infrastructure of the mobile phone network in Kigali, Rwanda'
in: Critical African Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 26 - 46, 2015.
Full text
'The domestic turn : business processing outsourcing and the growing automation of Kenyan organisations'
in: Journal of development studies, 2015.
Full text
'Geographies of connectivity in East Africa : trains, telecommunications, and technological teleologies'
in: Transactions of the Institute of British geographers, pp. 43, 2015.
Full text
'Wasta! : the long term implications of education expansion and economic liberalization on politics in Sudan'
in: Review of African political economy, vol. 41, no. 142, pp. 561 - 578, 2014.
Full text
'Imagining a Silicon Valley : technological and conceptual connectivity in Kenya's BPO and software development sectors'
in: Electronic journal of information systems in developing countries, vol. 56, no. 2, pp. 1 - 19, 2013.
Full text
''We do our bit in our own space' : DAL Group and the development of a curiously Sudanese enclave economy'
in: Journal of modern African studies, vol. 51, no. 2, pp. 279 - 303, 2013.
'Getting a job in Sudan : an exploration into economic trust and social capital'
in: Sudan studies, no. Spring 2009, 2009.
'Review of D.C. Bach and M. Gazibo (eds.), 'Neopatrimonialism in Africa and beyond' (London and New York, NY : Routledge, 2012)'
Political studies review, vol. 12, no. 1, pp. 166 - 167, 2014.
'Review of T. Kelsall, 'Business, politics and the State in Africa : challenging the orthodoxies on growth and transformation' (London : Zed Books, 2013)'
African affairs, vol. 113, no. 452, pp. 467 - 468, 2014.
'Review of G. Blundo & J.-P. Olivier de Sardan, 'Everyday corruption and the State : citizens and public officials in Africa' (Cape Town : David Philip ; London : Zed Books, 2006)'
Africa : journal of the International African Institute, vol. 77, no. 4, pp. 609 - 610, 2007.