Jonathan Melchiorre

Biography

Over the past year, Luke has worked as a Research Associate at the University of Nairobi, a Research Fellow at the University of Dar es Salaam and a Visiting Researcher at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia. Luke is a recipient of the 2013 International Development Research Centre (IDRC) Doctoral Grant, the 2014 Tom Easterbrook Scholarship for Communications and Mass Media and he is currently an OGS Scholar and a Senior Fellow at University of Toronto’s New College. His doctoral research focuses on the historical relationship between the state and university students in Kenya and Tanzania in the post-colonial period. Specifically, he is interested in examining the role that the state has played in constructing and politicizing the social category of student youth in both cases.
Research interests: African politics: esp. Eastern Africa, comparative development, nation-building and state formation, youth politics, citizenship, politics of identity.