Dr Delphine Manetta

Dr Delphine Manetta

Researcher & Deputy Director

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My research lies at the intersection of studies on masculinities, labour and space.

My doctoral thesis in Anthropology at University Paris Descartes, France focused on elected male officials in Jàana villages, southwestern Burkina Faso. In this work, I examined how masculinities and rural space have evolved together over time. I then broadened my research to urban contexts, developing my reflection on masculinities and ultimately extending it to labour. During a postdoctoral fellowship at IMAF-EHESS, France, I examined kinship and gender relations in Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso. A grant from an IDEX project – University of Paris, France, enabled me to investigate labour relations and trade unionism among male dockworkers at the port of Abidjan, Cote d’Ivoire.

My current project at IFRA-Nigeria is a critical extension of my previous research. It focuses on “Masculinities at work” in Ibadan, Nigeria, within two professional settings: currency exchange offices and craft and trade workshops. I explore how caring about/for people, materialities and the workspace, or the lack thereof, shapes male labour relationships and hierarchies as well as urban space. I thus use the notion of care as a critical tool: firstly, to discuss the imaginaries surrounding African masculinities, without offering a precarious, predatory or romantic view of men; and, secondly, to draw continuities or ruptures between care and power dynamics among men and within the world of work.

Latest publications

2025 (to be published) “Victimes ou corrompus? Être leaders syndicalistes sur le port d’Abidjan”, Nouvelle revue du Travail.

2025 With Husaini, Sa’eed (eds), “Introduction. Nigeria’s 2023 general elections “from below”. Continuities, transformation, and variations”. Special issue, IFRA Working paper series, 60. URL: https://ifra-nigeria.org/publications/e-papers/684-working-paper-60-nigeria-s-2023-general-elections-from-below-continuities-transformation-and-variations

2024, Une élection africaine. Pouvoir, espace et transformations au sud-ouest du Burkina Faso, Paris, L’Harmattan.

2022 Contribution to Petenque, P. (ed), Anthropologie de la Parenté. Le débat des avatars, Nanterre, Société d’Ethnologie.

2022 “Quelque chose de ‟pourri” dans le don. Richesse, ordures et sorcellerie au Burkina Faso”. In Dianteill, Erwan, Bindi, Serena and Lamote, Thierry (eds), La violence insidieuse. Anthropologie et psychologie de la sorcellerie et du harcèlement moral, Paris, Éditions Archives Karéline: 65-94.

2021 With Samson, Fabienne (eds), Du contrôle social en Afrique. Réflexivités autour du genre et de l’origine “locale” du chercheur, Paris-Brazzaville, PAARI Editions.