Interview with Géraud Magrin, geographer specializing in Africa (Université Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne)
The "Portraits of Researchers in Area Studies" (PEA) collection is a series of large-format interviews produced by Inalco as part of the Digital Paris Research School of Area Studies (D-PaRSAS) institutional project. Deposited on the MediHal open archive, this series of portraits joins a set of collections on the Language and Cultural Area Studies (LaCAS) platform. These collections aim to build up a living, freely accessible scientific heritage of research on the world's languages, societies and cultures.
Large format portrait
Video: A political geography of resources in Africa. An interview with Géraud Magrin (Université Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne)
An interview conducted by Bastien Sepúlveda, in charge of Digital Humanities (DIRVED, Inalco), directed by Dimitri Galitzine, produced by Inalco (18/04/2024, 1h 30mn).
Podcast:
Géraud Magrin is Professor of Geography at Université Paris 1 - Panthéon-Sorbonne and a member of the Pôle de recherche pour l'organisation et la diffusion de l'information géographique (PRODIG, UMR 8586). His work focuses on development and resource management issues in West Africa. In this interview, he looks back on his career and experiences in the Lake Chad region and Senegal, as well as the trajectories of Africanist research in France.
Chairman of the Development and Tropicalities Commission of the French National Geography Committee (CNFG) since 2016, he has contributed his expertise to numerous study and development projects, notably concerning Lake Chad.
He has piloted several collective publication projects, including:
- Une compagnie pétrolière chinoise face à l'enjeu environnemental au Tchad (with Geer van Vliet, 2012, Focales 09, AFD)
- L' Anthropocene in the Tropics: debates and development issues, Colloque de la Commission des espaces tropicaux et de leur développement - CNFG (Belgeo, 2020)
- Atlas of Lake Chad (IRD Editions, Passages, 2015)
- La région du lac Tchad à l'épreuve de Boko Haram, AFD, Crise et développement, 2018)
- "Research, expertise and development. Le difficile dialogue entre sciences sociales et politiques publiques autour du lac Tchad", 2022, with Rangé C., Mbagogo A.K., Mahamadou A., Lemoalle J., Raimond C., in Peyroux E., Lavie E., Raimond C., Viel V. (dir.), Développement, changements globaux et dynamiques des territoires, London, ISTE.
Among his latest publications:
- Regards indisciplinés des SHS, 2023, with Rémi Beau, Patrick Caron, Claude Compagnone, Bernard Hubert, Charles-François Mathis, Cécile Renouard, LLL (Les liens qui libèrent) Collection Petits manuels de la grande transition
- Atlas of Africa. Un continent émergent?, 2022, with Alain Dubresson and Olivier Ninot, Autrement, Atlas.
- "L'orpaillage est-il soluble dans le développement des territoires en Afrique", 2022, with Dessertine A., Chevrillon-Guibert R., Gagnol L., Betabelet J., Diallo M.L., Petit-Roulet R., Sawadogo E., Tongnoma Z., in Peyroux E., Lavie E., Raimond C., Viel V. (dir.), Development, Global Change and Territorial Dynamics, London, ISTE
- "Geopolitics of Africa, weak link of globalization or power in power?", 2021, with Delamotte G., Tellenne C. (dir.), Geopolitics and Geoeconomics of the Contemporary World. Puissance et conflits, Paris, La Découverte, Repères edition, textbooks: 569-584.
- Dictionnaire critique de l'anthropocène, 2020, with F. Alexandre, F. Argounès, R. Bénos, D. Blanchon, F. Blot, et al., CNRS.
He is currently head of the Master parcours Dynamiques des pays émergents et en développement (DynPED). He also co-produced the MOOC Natural Resources and Territorial Development in Africa, whose courses are still online on the UFR de géographie de Paris I media library.