My research focuses on the politics of commodities, and my past projects have focused on the politics of responsibility in Cameroon, and also on cotton and food in African contexts
Commodity Politics: Contesting Responsibility in Cameroon
SSHRC Insight Grant (IG) 2015-2019
This project assessed political contests over the meaning of ‘responsibility’ in Cameroon, and exposed conflicts over the actions necessary to advance ‘responsibility‘ in that country’s gold, palm, sugar, oil and cocoa sectors. This project produced a multi-authored book on the politics of commodities that was published by McGill-Queen’s University Press (MQUP) in 2022. Beyond the book, I have contributed to a co-authored article on the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline, and also to co-authored chapters on linked to commodities, Cameroon and Africa more generally that are available in a great volume on the Transnational Land Rush in Africa, and also in a fantastic open access(!) volume on Natural Resources in Africa. I am also a co-author on an article on extractives and conservation in other African contexts, and on a handbook chapter on commodities. I presented some initial thoughts on this project at the University of Bremen in 2018.
Politics of Food in Central Africa
CIGI Africa Initiative Research Grant
This project produced manuscripts that were published in the Journal of Contemporary African Studies, Sustainability, the Canadian Journal of African Studies, and ASPJ – Africa and Francophonie. A policy brief was also produced in collaboration with several NGOs. Analyses linked to this work were also published on the now defunct Think Africa Press website, and those contributions are now archived on All Africa. Some of this work also informed a textbook chapter that I wrote on Africa’s political economies.
Politics of Cotton in Africa
Guelph Faculty Start-Up Funds & SSHRC Doctoral CGS
Building on my doctoral research project, this work focused on the global politics of African cotton. Articles were published in Development and Change, Third World Quarterly and the Canadian Journal of Development Studies. The second article was revised and republished as a chapter in a book. Analyses linked to this research were published in This is Africa and African Arguments, This research gained global recognition in 2015 when the WTO Director-General invited me to moderate a panel on Africa’s cotton problems composed of trade ministers and heads of international organizations. I have continued to be invited to speak about African cotton at events around the world.
Check out a podcast where I joined Bob Huish’s Global Development Primer (GDP) to discuss the 2020 World Economic Forum. During our session I discussed some of my conclusions about global political economic elites that I have arrived at through this research.
Copies of all of my research outputs – including chapters, articles, op-eds, policy briefs, reports, book reviews, glossary contributions and more – can be downloaded from my Academia site.
Adam Sneyd 