Makki, Fouad

Assistant Professor
As an undergraduate, I was educated in comparative studies in society and history at Cornell University and received a Ph. D. in sociology from Binghamton University. My principal focus of interest over the past few years has been understanding forms of social power as they change over time, and the way economic systems intertwine with cultural forms in those transformations. I am particularly interested in development processes viewed from a broadly comparative and historical perspective, together with the various theories that attempt to account for them.

research

research and scholarship focus

I am currently engaged in two overlapping research projects. The first is a comparative study of national development trajectories in Northeast Africa in the context of divergent colonial pasts and the post-World War II international political and economic order. The second seeks to examine the complex coping and adaptive mechanisms of local societies in the semi-arid regions of Eritrea – from crop and herd diversification to careful exploitation of ecological niches – and how these are being undermined by the State’s drive to fix agro-pastoral communities in particular places, and to pursue a development strategy centered on intensive mechanized agriculture.

international geographic focus

submitted impact statement

affiliations

faculty appointment in

member of graduate field

teaching

teaching focus

My courses focus on theories of development and social change that are foundational for the undergraduate and graduate program in the department of development sociology. Courses Taught: DSOC 606: Sociological Theories of Development; DSOC 301: Theories of Society and Development; DSOC 872.5: The Historical Sociology of Modernity.

service

outreach focus

My current outreach work is focused on the development of a new social science curriculum for Eritrea`s school system. This is being conducted in collaboration with the Curriculum Department of the Ministry of Education in Eritrea and entails the design of a reference text that can serve as a guide and template for the production of social science textbooks.

current professional activities

  • Social Sciences in a Globalizing World. Workshop with the Curriculum Department, Ministry of Education ? Asmara, Eritrea. July. Invited to lead a one-week workshop. - 2006
  • "Power and Nationalism in Modern Africa. " Conference organized by the Africana Studies & Research Center, Cornell University. September 22-23, 2006. Invited Panelist. - 2006
  • "Globalization Theory or a Theory of Globalization? " New York State Sociological Association Annual Conference. October 14, 2005. Invited Panelist. - 2005
  • "Themes in the History of Colonial and Post-Colonial Northeast Africa. " Africa-Europe Group for Interdisciplinary Studies (AEGIS), School of Oriental & African Studies, London. June 29, 2005. Invited Panelist. - 2005
  • Disciplinary Politics and the Politics of Disciplines. Workshop organized under the auspices of the International Studies Association. Honolulu, Hawaii. March 1-5, 2005. Invited participant. - 2005

background

educational background

  • Ph.D., 2005, Binghamton University

publications

selected publications (listing in progress)

  • "The Empire of Capital and the Remaking of Center-Periphery Relations. " Third World Quarterly, Volume 25, no. 1. 2004
  • "The Aporias of Nationalism: Political Culture, Ideology and Democracy, " in Hartmut Quehl (ed.) Living in Wartimes, Living in Postwar Times (Felsberg, Germany: Edition Eins, 2002). 2002

speaker at Cornell event

Keywords: and society, economy, state