Jana’s current research examines how political geographies become transformed through South-South relations by studying the contested social and security arrangements around multinational companies and large-scale infrastructure projects in Africa.
This research explores how postcolonial and transnationalized politics in Africa come to constitute security knowledges and their related practices. It examines how governance practices are co-produced and contested, how they travel, and to what effect. Much of her work is multi-sited, taking place in diverse locales such as in Europe, China, and Brazil, as well as several African countries (South Africa, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Guinea).
Before becoming a Professor of Sociology of Africa at the University of Bayreuth, Jana was an Associate Professor and Rosalind Franklin Fellow in International Relations at the University of Groningen. Prior to that, she worked as a lecturer in International Relations at the Politics and International Relations Department, University of Edinburgh.
