معرفی
Mai Azzam is a Junior Fellow at the University of Bayreuth's Graduate School in African Studies (BIGSAS), focusing on anthropological and ethnological research in Sudan. Her academic work examines youth political engagement within repressive socio-political contexts.
Her research centers on youth activism and friendship networks in Khartoum, analyzing how social formations navigate agency under Sudan's Islamist post-colonial regime. Key interests include:
- Negotiation of private/public spheres in resistance movements
- Neoliberal aspirations versus state repression
- Formation of dissent spaces preceding the 2018-2019 December uprisings
- Ethnography of the Khartoum sit-in as a "concrete utopia"
- Middle-class dynamics in utopian conceptualization
Azzam's work contextualizes Sudan's 2018-2019 protests within broader MENA regional movements, challenging narratives of sudden uprising emergence by documenting sustained pre-revolutionary activism through leisure, charity, and solidarity networks. Her thesis provides critical ethnographic evidence of how hope was cultivated within repressive environments to fuel political transformation.
