Mats Utas

Researcher Mats Utas. Photo by Ola Lundström.

Cluster Leader
Cluster: Conflict
Associate professor
Researcher at NAI since 2004

Subject areas
Political informality, network analysis, conflict, war, rebel movements and militia, youth, ex-combatants, gender, media, election violence, African cities, urban informality, poverty, alternative forms of governance, transnational businessmen.

Geographical areas
West Africa: Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana
Horn of Africa: Somalia

Contact:
mats.utas@nai.uu.se
Tel: +46 18 471 52 91 (direct)

Finalized research projects

Academic background

Mats Utas is Associate Professor in Cultural Anthropology and leader for the Conflict, Security and Democratic Transformation cluster at the Nordic Africa Institute. He has worked as a lecturer in social and cultural anthropology at University of Liberia and Stockholm University, and as senior lecturer in sociology at Fourah Bay College (University of Sierra Leone). Utas has written extensively on child and youth combatants, politics and economy of informality, contested sovereignties, media, refugees and gender in conflict and war zones. He has also researched street life, informality, and alternative forms of organization in urban centers. Utas has conducted fieldwork in Liberia, Sierra Leone, the Ivory Coast and on Somalia. He is the editor of African conflicts and informal power: Big Men and Networks (Zed Books, March 2012), the co-editor (with Henrik Vigh and Catrine Christiansen) of  Navigating youth - generating adulthood: social becoming in an African context (the Nordic Africa Institute 2006) as well as of numerous articles in journals and edited books. He is currently researching three interrelated subjects: urban poverty and street life; former mid-level commanders and their roles as brokers in postwars; and election related violence. All three projects have a focus on West Africa.

Beyond gender and stir

Despite general agreement that security sector reform (SSR) efforts need to be gendered, there is less concurrence on what gendering means and how it should be achieved. The policy field of gender and SSR is characterised by handbooks rather than empirical studies.
− This text in not a manual. Instead, the aim of this policy dialogue is to unpack some aspects of the gender and SSR discourse, says Mats Utas.
Download NAI Policy Dialogue Beyond “Gender and Stir” edited by Mats Utas and Maria Eriksson Baaz.

Jew-Man Business: economy of the street

A new documentary from Freetown Sierra Leone.
Read more about the film and watch a trailer here.

Pentagon street corner

Short film from the Pentagon street corner in downtown Freetown. The film is shot by the researcher and is a tribute to the Pentagon youth.

Civili Rule

Short film from the Civili festival (2005-2008). Masked societies are colorful urban phenomena in Sierra Leone. Activities of Civili goes far beyond festivities only.

Movies on the war in Sierra Leone

Read Mats Utas commentaries on Hollywood's Blood Diamond (pdf) and FESPACO 2007 winner Ezra (pdf) (texts in Swedish only).

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