Peer-reviewed journal articles/book chapters/reports:

Below are links to the journals with my articles. If you’re institutionalised and can get past the academic paywall then please download from there (it’s all about metrics, unfortunately!) If not, the PDFs of my final accepted drafts (AAMs) are also here for anyone to download for free. 

“Algorithmic power and African indigenous languages: search engine autocomplete and the global multilingual Internet” (with Stephanie Diepeveen and Yidnekachew Haile), Media, Culture & Society, 2022 (OPEN ACCESS)

“Social media and the transnational everyday: mobility, opportunity and risk in Hargeisa, Somaliland” Rift Valley Institute Report, FCDO Cross-Border Conflict Evidence, Policy and Trends (XCEPT) programme, (2022). OPEN ACCESS. Also published in Somali here.

“Precarious technoscapes: forced mobility and mobile connections at the urban margins” (with Jutta Bakonyi) Journal of the British Academy, 9(s11): 67–91. (2021) OPEN ACCESS (free to download from the journal’s site).

“Precarious spaces and violent site effects: experiences from Hargeisa’s urban margins” (with Kirsti Stuvøy and Jutta Bakonyi) Conflict, Security & Development, published online (May 2021) OPEN ACCESS (free to download from the journal’s site).

“Precarious labour – Precarious lives: Photographic glimpses from displaced people in Somali cities” (with Jutta Bakonyi) Afrique contemporaine 2019 1-2: 205-224 (2021) (Feel free to email me about access).

“Self‐determination and a shattered star: Statehood and national identity in the Somali Horn of Africa” (with Sally Healy) Nations and Nationalism, 27(1): 61-79 (2021) OPEN ACCESS (free to download from the journal’s site).

“Information and communication technologies and mobility in the Horn of Africa: a review of the literature” (with Yidnekachew Haile) London: EU Trust Fund for Africa (Horn of Africa Window) Research and Evidence Facility (2020)

“The Empire Tweets Back? #HumanitarianStarWars and Memetic Self-Critique in the Aid Industry” advance online publication (21 November 2019) in Social Media + Society. OPEN ACCESS (free to download from the journal’s site)

“‘Glocalised’ jihad, political conflict, and conspiracy theorisation across a fragmented Somalia” book chapter in Exporting Global Jihad, Volume One: Critical Perspectives from Africa and Europe, Tom Smith & Hussein Solomon (eds.) I.B. Tauris, London (2020) [Feel free to email me about this one].

“#Bookfairs: old/new media and the politics of literary promotion in the Somali Horn of Africa” advance online publication (21 June 2019) in New Media & Society. PDF of Author Accepted Manuscript: AAM PChonka #Bookfairs

“War and city-making in Somalia: Property, power and disposable lives” (with Jutta Bakonyi and Kirsti Stuvoy) Political Geography 73: 82-91 (2019). Open access – free to download from journal site.

“‘Igu sawir “gone too far”? Social media and state reconstruction in Somalia’” book chapter in Social Media and Politics in Africa: Democracy, Censorship and Security
Thomas Molony, Maggie Dwyer (eds.) Zed Books, London (2019)

“News media and political contestation in the Somali territories: defining the parameters of a transnational digital public” Journal of Eastern African Studies 13 (1): 140-157 (2019). PDF of Author Accepted Manuscript: AAM Somali digital public

“New media, performative violence, and state reconstruction in Mogadishu” African Affairs, 117 (468) 392–414 (2018). PDF of Author Accepted Manuscript: AAM New media

“Cartoons in conflict: Amin Arts and transnational geopolitical imagination in the Somali -language public sphere” Critical African Studies. 9(3) 350-376 (2017). PDF of Author Accepted Manuscript: AAM Cartoons

“Spies, stonework and the suuq: Somali nationalism and the narrative politics of Harakat Al Shabaab Al Mujaahidiin’s online propaganda” Journal of Eastern African Studies, 10(2) 247-265 (2016). PDF of Author Accepted Manuscript: AAM Al Shabaab propaganda

Book reviews:

“African language digital media and communication” edited by Abiodun Salawu, Reviewed for New Media & Society, 1-4, 2020.

“Elusive Jannah: The Somali diaspora and a borderless Muslim identity” by Cawo M. Abdi, Reviewed for Journal of Islamic Studies, published online May 2016.

“The real politics of the Horn of Africa: money, war and the business of power” by Alex de Waal, Reviewed for Journal of National Identities, published online June 2016.

“Everyday Media Culture in Africa: Audiences and Users” edited by Wendy Willems and Winston Mano. Reviewed for Africa at LSE, June 2017.

‘Grey’ literature:

“Algorithmic Power And East African Languages: Questioning Search Engine Autocomplete (PART 1 and PART 2)” Blog posts (November 2020, with Stephanie Diepeveen and Yidnekachew Haile) for our current Datafication and Digital Rights in East Africa network project.

Online interactive report on workshop I co-organised (with Freddie Carver and the Rift Valley Institute) on ‘Understanding and visualising the ‘Transnational Everyday’. This was part of our project within the RVI’s X-Border Research Network. The report discusses and showcases different tools and methods for capturing the complexities of cross border movements of people, goods, and ideas, in the Horn of Africa and beyond.

“‘Regional’ representation and resistance: Is there a relationship between 2017 elections in Somalia and Somaliland?” Horn of African Bulletin, Volume 29 Issue 1, January-February 2017.

“What you need to know to understand Al Shabaab” ‘Long read’ commentary for Centre on Religion and Geopolitics, September 21, 2016.