Anna Macdonald is a research fellow in the International Development Department. She is currently a co-I on the AHRC-ESRC funded Politics of Return project and the ESRC funded Trajectories of Forced Displacement project. Anna is also a researcher at the new Centre for Public Authority and International Development (CPAID) and at the DFID-funded Conflict Research Programme, hosted in the ID department.
Anna’s main research interests lie in the areas of justice, law and social order, with a particular focus on Central Africa; and in the dynamics of displacement, return, reintegration and cycles of violence. She is also interested in the politics of humanitarian and international development interventions. Prior to embarking on an academic career, she worked for think-tanks, including the Institute for Public Policy Research and the Aegis Trust and also as a researcher on the International Development Committee at the European Parliament.
Her recent research has been published in Africa, Development and Change and the Journal of Eastern African Studies. She is currently co-editing a Dictionary of Humanitarianism for Routledge and working on a joint book project about the role and politics of magistrates' courts in areas of limited statehood.