Dr Rachel Ibreck is a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Firoz Lalji Institute for Africa and Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at Goldsmiths, University of London.  She is Director of the British Institute in Eastern Africa, one of the British International Research Institutes with a research centre in Nairobi, promoting research in the humanities and social sciences across the region.

Rachel’s research explores the politics of justice, memory and rights in conflict and crisis settings within East Africa; and among refugees from the region. She is interested in the authorities, laws and actors that govern these issues, and in their relations with international interventions and norms. She employs ethnographic, collaborative action, and archival approaches. She is co-investigator on a grant from Volkswagen Stiftung/ Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, Traces of Mobility, Violence and Solidarity, Reconceptualizing cultural heritage through the lens of migration (2022-2025) hosted at the University of Milan. She has previously received funding from the Global Challenges Research Fund, Social Science Research Council, the Justice and Security Research Programme, and the Conflict Research Programme (LSE).

Rachel’s publications include a book, South Sudan’s Injustice System: Law and Activism on the Frontline (Zed Books/Bloomsbury, 2019), and articles in academic journals, including The Journal of Intervention and Statebuilding, International Political Sociology, Memory Studies, Journal of Civil Society and African Affairs. She is also a co-editor of the Journal of Genocide Research.

Rachel holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations (University of Bristol) and an MA Area Studies, Africa (SOAS).

Research interests: politics, civil society, human rights, justice, conflict and genocide

Region of focus: East Africa

Expertise details: politics and practices of human rights and humanitarianism, civil society, transitional justice; customary law, memorialisation.