Dr. Marion Atieno Ouma

Visited the IAS in July 2024

I am a research fellow in Sociology, with a focus in Social Policy at the university of South Africa. My research expertise and interests broadly include sociology, social policy, social protection, policymaking and the political economy of Africa’s development.  As part of my research, I have examined the process of social protection policymaking in Africa with specific focus on Kenya by drawing on theories of political economy and notions of unequal power, the influence of transnational actors, and nation policy sovereignty of policy. During my two-week long fellowship stay at the Institute of African Studies – University of Bayreuth in July, I made progress on an ongoing paper manuscript which I presented at the Institute. Drawing upon the ongoing protests related to the debt crisis in Kenya at the time, the paper brought to the fore discussions on policy sovereignty, eliciting important debates on the contemporary topic. Feedback received from participants will support finalizing the paper. During the period I participated in a poster presentation event by doctoral candidates at the Faculty of Life Sciences: Food, Nutrition and Health at the Kulmbach satellite campus, where students displayed the diversity of their topics and research approaches. Furthermore, I was honoured to be a discussant to a doctoral student’s paper presentation as part of the BIGSAS Colloquium. The fellowship offered me opportunity to meet other researchers with similar research interests, and have discussions on potential areas of future collaboration. Though short, my fellowship stay at IAS was immensely productive.