I am one of four featured academics in a piece in Geographical Magazine on ‘The Winter of Middle East discontent’ – adding a territorial perspective to issues. I relate the challenges to boundaries by Islamic State to what is happening in Nigeria with Boko Haram. This was a somewhat different experience – I was interviewed on a very bad skype connection, and then the reporter wrote up the text appearing as if it was written by me, when it’s really his take on my ideas. I can’t help but think it would have been easier if I’d be asked to write 300 words myself.

I expand on these parallels in a (previously mentioned) piece on the Geographical Directions blog, which itself relates to the article on “The geopolitics of Boko Haram and Nigeria’s ‘war on terror’”. My department rounds up these three pieces here.

While the article was accepted for publication in August, the interview and the blog piece are more recent. I also discussed these themes in more detail in my Harvard lecture in September – “Iraq and Nigeria: Crises of Territorial Integrity”.