Dr. Yolande Bouka

Yolande Bouka (@yolandebouka) is a scholar-practitioner of peace and conflict, and currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of International Affairs and African Studies at the Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University.  Her research and teaching bridge International Relations (IR) and Comparative Politics with specific interests in contentious politics, dynamics of war, gender and security, and field research ethics in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Her current research project investigates women’s agency in warfare, specifically a case study of female combatants in Namibia’s war of independence. Her previous research which is now a book “In the Shadow of Prison: Power, Identity, and Transitional Justice in Post-Genocide Rwanda” focused on the social and political impacts of the power-laden nature of the Rwandan transitional justice (TJ) program.

In addition to her academic work, she has extensive experience with development and peace and security research agencies.  She has worked with and offered support to USAID, the UK Department for International Development, the United Nations, the African Union, the Center for Strategic and International Studies and the United States Institute of Peace. Between 2014 and 2016 she was a researcher at the Institute for Security Studies (ISS) in the Conflict Prevention and Risk Analysis Division, focusing on Africa’s Great Lakes Region.

Yolande holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the American University. She has conducted field research and has expertise in Burundi, Kenya, Namibia, Rwanda, and Tanzania.