Insights
Research notes, field reflections, reading lists, and commentary on political economy, gender, and development.
Research Notes from Mogadishu: The Politics of Data Collection
What happens when your survey team cannot enter a district because of a clan dispute? Field reflections on doing political economy research in contested spaces.
The Care Economy Is Real Economics — We Just Pretend It Isn't
If a woman in Mogadishu cares for three children, cooks for her extended family, and tends a small garden, she produces value. Why do our national accounts say she produces nothing?
A Researcher's Reading List: Political Economy of Fragile States
The ten books and papers that have most shaped how I think about governance, institutions, and economic development in contested spaces.
What I Learned Writing Somalia's First Gender-Responsive Budget Analysis
Numbers are never neutral. A budget is a moral document — and reading it through a gender lens reveals who a government truly serves.
Advice I Give Myself: On Being a Woman Researcher in a Man's Field
No one tells you how much of research is performance. How to dress, how to speak, how to be authoritative without being threatening. Here is what I have learned.