As the journal enters Volume 18, the Editors wanted to draw attention to some important developments. The first of these is the expansion of our Editorial Advisory Board. As the journal continues to develop, we are grateful to our scholarly community for their engagement, and in helping to shape the direction of the journal. The EAB was first expanded with Volume 13, and the continued input and support of was an important element of our navigation through the challenging period since the COVID-19 pandemic. The expanded Advisory Board will play an important role in helping to guide the journal’s next phase of development.
We are also grateful to Dr Emma Hunter, who has stepped down from the Editorial Board with the end of Volume 17. Emma joined the editorial team in 2019, and her co-editors express our sincere appreciation for her dedication to the role and the journal, which was undiminished during the difficult and disruptive effects of the pandemic. We are pleased to note that Dr Hunter will be joining the Editorial Advisory Board, and we look forward to her continued input in that role.
The Editors and EAB are pleased to welcome Dr Andrea Purdeková to succeed Dr Hunter. Dr Purdeková holds the post of Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Conflict and Security at the Department of Politics, Languages, and International Studies at the University of Bath. Her work focuses on the politics of transitional justice, nation-building and memory in contexts of community-based violence and has undertaken fieldwork research in Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya. Andrea has also researched the politics of displacement, returnee reintegration and camps. Most recently, she has been exploring the nexus between memory and everyday security in the wake of mass violence.
The Editors are delighted to open Volume 18 of the journal with a special issue, Fragments of solidarity: the social worlds of African migrants moving northwards, guest edited by Dr Luca Ciabarri and Dr Anja Simonsen. The collection ranges across a wide geography connecting Eastern Africa to the Southern and Northern shores of the Mediterranean, as well as across a number of disciplinary lenses.
As ever, we are grateful to our sponsors, the British Institute in Eastern Africa, our publisher, Taylor & Francis, and especially you, our readers, for your continued support and engagement with the journal.