Digital resources in the Social Sciences and Humanities OpenEdition Our platforms OpenEdition Books OpenEdition Journals Hypotheses Calenda Libraries OpenEdition Freemium Follow us

Clélia Coret – Former Director (2022-2024)

IFRA’s Director Clélia Coret (2022-2024)

Clélia Coret is a Historian and specialist of East Africa and the Swahili coast in the 19th and 20th centuries. She holds a PhD in Contemporary History from Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne. Her award-winning thesis (Mattei Dogan Price/FMSH) “The Refunding of a Swahili Polity in Witu: Writing History and Legitimizing Power on the Northern Coast of East Africa (1812-1895)” is grounded in archive and field research in Kenya, Tanzania, Germany, France and the UK. It explored the history of Witu, a coastal polity in modern-day Kenya founded by the Swahili dynasty of Nabahani. She analysed the use of historical writing as a tool for legitimising dynastic power and examines the complex relations between Witu, German and British imperial actors, and different populations of the surrounding region.

Her current research project – started at the Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin (2019) and at LabEx Hastec/Centre Alexandre-Koyré (École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales) (2020) – explores the co-production of linguistic knowledge on the East African coast in a missionary and colonial context. More specifically, it deals with the fundamental role of local informants in building the knowledge at work in evangelising missions. 

In 2021-2022, she became a member of the ERC project “Aftermath of Slavery in East Africa” (University of Ghent, led by Pr. Felicitas Becker) and conducted fieldwork in Malindi rural area, Kenya. Using historian’s methodologies, including archival records and interviews, the project explores the political issues and social interactions in the 20th century in the Giriama-area harbouring a complex mixture of slaves, African slave owners, escaped slaves from the coast and others redeemed by missionaries.

She has been Co-Editor-in-Chief of the academic journal Afriques. Débats, méthodes et terrains d’histoire (2017-2021). She is a member of the Editorial Board of Sources: Materials & Fieldwork in African Studies.

Her last publications include:

– 2021, « Runaway Slaves and the Aftermath of Slavery on the Swahili Coast. New Perspectives from Witu in the 19th Century », Journal of Global Slavery, Vol. 6, n° 3, 275–313.

– 2021, (with Patrick Abungu) « History, Memory, and the Heritage of Slavery on the Kenyan Coast: The Witu and Shimoni Cases », in M.-A. Fouéré, M.-E. Pommerolle, C. Thibon, Kenya in Motion 2000-2020, Paris & Nairobi, Africae, p. 345-347.

– 2020, « Cities in Africa before 1900. Historiography and Research Perspectives », Afriques. Débats, méthodes et terrains d’histoire, n° 11, with R. Zaugg, G. Chouin.

– 2019 | « La souveraineté de Witu au XIXe siècle. De la refondation à la colonisation d’une cité-État sur la côte est-africaine », Revue d’histoire du XIXe siècle, n° 59, p. 49-69.

– 2017 | « Savoirs missionnaires, savoirs d’ethnologues. Production et circulation des premiers savoirs ethnologiques et linguistiques sur les Pokomo (Kenya) à la fin XIXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle », in J.-L. Georget, G. Hallair, B. Tschofen, Saisir le terrain ou l’invention des sciences empiriques en France et en Allemagne, Lille-Villeneuve d’Ascq, Presses Universitaires du Septentrion, Collection Mondes germaniques, p. 113-130.

For further information, see also: https://imaf.cnrs.fr/spip.php?article1670


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
IFRA Nairobi (August 25, 2022). Clélia Coret – Former Director (2022-2024). IFRA Nairobi. Retrieved February 16, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/pw2g