Clovis Bergère

About

Clovis Bergère is the director of the Institute for Advanced Study in the Global South at Northwestern University Qatar. His research examines youth as a contested social and political category in Guinea, West Africa, with a focus on digital media and urban life. In addition, he has also written on street corners as nodes of youth sociability and politics in Guinea. Prior to joining Northwestern University in Qatar, he worked at the Center for Advanced Research in Global Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship. He holds a Ph.D. in Childhood Studies from Rutgers University-Camden (2017) and has taught at Rutgers University in Camden, the University of the Arts, and the University of Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in the Public Culture, International Journal of Communication, African Studies Review, the Journal of Childhood Studies, and American Anthropologist, as well as several edited volumes. Prior to returning to academia in 2011, he worked as a project manager in Children’s Services in London, where he oversaw the building over thirty playgrounds and youth centers, focused on natural play and collaborative design.

Research

• Youth as a contested social, cultural, and political category
• Digital media and cultures in Francophone West Africa
• Urban life and youth citizenship in Guinea

Teaching

• Children and Youth Studies
• African digital media and cultures
• Urban education

Publications

Bergère, C. (forthcoming, 2025) “#guineennedu21esiecle and the Radical Potential of Feminist Activism in Contemporary Guinea” in Roberts, T, and Bosch, T. (eds). Feminist Digital citizenship in Africa. Zed Books.

Bergère, C. (forthcoming, 2025) “Youth as Digital Infrastructure: Radical Openings, Shutdowns, and Momentums” in Junck, L. and Yékú, J. (eds) African Digital Cultures: Platforms, Publics, Infrastructures, University of Amsterdam Press.

Bergère, C. & Kraidy, M. M. (2024) From Dazzle to Diesel: Mediating “Neo-Ottoman Cool” South (in Guinea-Conakry). Public Culture; 36 (1 (102)): 97–118. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-11121512

Bergère, C. (2024) "Jeunesse de l’Axe: Securing Youth, Digital Technologies, and Urban Space in Conakry, and Beyond." In Developing Critical Security Studies from Doha, edited by Hermez, S., Doha: #IAS_NUQ Press/Beirut: Arab Council for the Social Sciences.

Kannan, D., Dar, A., Duff, S., Sen, H., Nag, S., & Bergère, C. (2022). Childhood, Youth, and      Identity: A Roundtable Conversation from the Global South. Journal of Childhood Studies, 20-31. https://doi.org/10.18357/jcs202220249

Bergère, C. (2020) [Internet Shutdowns in Africa] “Don't Tax My Megabytes:” Digital Infrastructure and the Regulation of Citizenship in Africa. International Journal of Communication; 14 (2020): 18

Bergère, C. (2019) From Street Corners to Social Media: The Changing Location of Youth Citizenship in Guinea. African Studies Review; 63(1):124-145. doi: https://doi.org/10.1017/asr.2019.3

Bergère, C. (2019) Travels in the Congo [Voyage au Congo: A Report by André Gide and Marc Allégret] Allégret Marc, dir. 117 min. French with English subtitles. New York: USA: Icarus Film, 2017 [Copyright: 1927]” American Anthropologist

Bergère, C. (2017) “Remaking Street Corners as ‘Bureaux’: DIY Youth Spaces and Shifting Urban Ontologies in Guinea” in Day, Amber (ed.) DIY Utopias: Cultural Imagination and the Remaking of the Possible, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD.

 Balagopalan S. and Bergère C. (2017) “Postcolonial Childhoods.” In Oxford Bibliographies Online. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

Bergère, C. and Silver L. J. (2015) “Relational Phenomenology and the Politics of Urban Youth Research” in Kennelly, J. & Poyntz, S. (eds.) Phenomenology of Youth Cultures and Globalization, Routledge, London.