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Sylvain Racaud – IFRA Director

Sylvain Racaud is Director of IFRA-Nairobi from March 2025. He is on secondment from Bordeaux-Montaigne University, where he has been a senior lecturer in geography since 2017. As a member of Les Afriques dans le monde research center (LAM), he has coordinated numerous research programs with universities in East Africa and Cameroon, he was co-holder of the DianaT Chair of Excellence and head of the International Master in African Studies. He is co-director of the journal Suds. He was deputy director of IFRA-Nairobi in 2015 and 2016.

Based on a geography of circulations, his work in East Africa and Cameroon focuses on the integration of urban-rural relations into the globalized food economy. The research project proposed to IFRA is entitled « Food circulation: models, networks and markets ». This project is positioned at the crossroads of studies on urban supply, food systems, the spread of supermarkets, the geography of commerce, the geography of food and the socio-anthropology of food. The project seeks to understand how individuals appropriate food changes, for example linked to the rise of supermarkets and fast-food restaurants, or linked to urban reinventions of food heritages. How are food markets built? How do food networks shape territories? Food circulations are apprehended through three components: models, networks, and markets.

Some significant publications:

Racaud S, Jourda T. 2024. Coexistence pacifique des supermarchés importés et des marchés locaux a Douala et Kampala ? Lecture à partir de l’approvisionnement maraîcher. Bulletin de la Société Géographique de Liège 83 (2024/2), https://popups.uliege.be/0770-7576/index.php?id=7467 .

Kariuki N, Racaud S. 2024. Negotiating a place in town. Street vending in Thika (Kenya). Echogéo 67, https://doi.org/10.4000/11y04

Racaud S. 2023. Montagnes, routes et marchés en Tanzanie. Géographie des circulations dans les Uporoto. Comité des Travaux Historiques et Scientifiques – École nationale des chartes, Aubervilliers, 223 p. https://cths.fr/ed/edition.php?id=8454

Janin P, Fofiri E.J, Racaud S, 2023. Governance challenges for sustainable food systems: The return of politics and territories. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability Volume 65,  https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2023.101382

Bouhali A, Doron A, Racaud S. 2023. Circulations marchandes et mondialisation des pauvres : transformations sociales et spatiales vues des Suds. Suds 287 : 5-20, https://doi.org/10.4000/suds.299

Racaud S. 2022. Low-cost Chinese goods in Tanzania: The rise of transnational trade routes’ peripheral branches. Critical African Studies 15-1, https://doi.org/10.1080/21681392.2022.2154234 

Racaud S. 2021. Low-Cost Business in Kenya from the City to the Countryside, in Fouéré MA, Pommerolle ME, Thibo C. (éds). Kenya in motion 2000-2020, Paris & Nairobi : Africae, Coll. « Africae Studies ». DOI 10.4000/books.africae.2390 : 175-197.

Racaud S. 2018. Ramifications discrètes de routes marchandes transnationales : circulation de la pacotille chinoise entre marchés ruraux et villes secondaires au Cameroun. Les Cahiers d’Outre-Mer 278 : 433-464, doi.org/10.4000/com.9441

Racaud S. 2018. Ambiguous Resource: “Informal” Street Trading in Kisumu, Kenya. Articulo – Journal of Urban Research [Online], 17-18, https://journals.openedition.org/articulo/3702

 Racaud S, Kago J, Owuor S. 2018. Introduction: Contested Street: Informal Street Vending and its Contradictions. Articulo – Journal of Urban Research [Online], 17-18, https://journals.openedition.org/articulo/3719

Contact : sylvain.racaud@ifra-nairobi.net

Link to professional page on LAM : https://www.lam.sciencespobordeaux.fr/membre/sylvain-racaud/


OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
IFRA Nairobi (March 11, 2025). Sylvain Racaud – IFRA Director. IFRA Nairobi. Retrieved March 18, 2025 from https://doi.org/10.58079/13g5k