Events in ID

Overcoming Boko Haram: A Book and a Conversation on Islamic Extremism in West Africa

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Episode notes

This event celebrated the launch of Overcoming Boko Haram: Faith, Society & Islamic Radicalization in Northern Nigeria. The book looks beyond the details of the insurgency to examine the wider social and political processes that explain why Boko Haram emerged when and where it did, and what forces exist within society to contain it. Drawing on the detailed fieldwork of specialist Nigerian and Nigerianist scholars from Nigeria, connecting the worst of Boko Haram violence to the wider realities of the present, the book offers new insights into the drivers of Islamic extremism in Nigeria - poverty, regional inequality, environmental stress, migration, youth unemployment, and state corruption and human rights abuses - with a view to charting more sustainable paths out of the conflict. #LSEbokoharam Speakers: Dr Kate Meagher, Co-Author and Associate Professor in Development Studies Professor Funmi Olonisakin, Professor of Security, Leadership and Development at King's College London Aoife McCullough, PhD candidate and Former Research Fellow at ODI Chair: Professor Catherine Boone, Professor of International Development