Professor Kate Meagher

Professor Kate Meagher

Professor in Development Studies

Department of International Development

Telephone
+44 (0)20 7849 4652
Languages
English, French
Key Expertise
informal economy; gig economy; hybrid governance; religion; Nigeria; Africa

About me

Kate Meagher has expertise in the informal economy and non-state governance in Africa. She has carried out extensive empirical and theoretical research on cross-border trading systems and regional integration, the urban informal sector, rural non-farm activities, small-enterprise clusters, and informal enterprise associations, and has engaged in fieldwork in Nigeria, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her research focuses on the changing character of the informal economy in contemporary Africa, and the implications of economic informalization for development, democratization and globalization. 

She is the author of Identity Economics: Social Networks and the Informal Economy in Nigeria (James Currey 2010); The Bargain Sector: Structural Adjustment and the Non-Farm Sector in the Nigerian Savanna (Ashgate 2001), and Globalisation, Economic Inclusion and African Workers: Making the Right Connections (Routledge 2018) edited with Laura Mann and Maxim Bolt.

Selected publications

Dr Meagher has degrees from the University of Toronto; the Institute of Development Studies (University of Sussex), and a D.Phil in Sociology from Oxford have been interspersed with lecturing and research positions at IAR/Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, Nigeria (1991-1997) and at the African Studies Centre, University of Oxford (2005-2008).

She has working knowledge of the following languages: Hausa and Setswana 

Expertise Details

Nigeria; Sub-Saharan Africa; West Africa; social networks; enterprise clusters; informal economy; gig economy; informal institutions; hybrid governance; rural development; religion in Africa