Luca Bruls, Mapping the popular digital networks in the Sahel and their entanglement in conflict networks

As a PhD candidate Luca works on the NWO-funded project Digital warfare in the Sahel: popular networks of war and Cultural Violence. Her PhD project is a study of religious networks in times of conflict in the Sahel. She researches ‘popular culture’ by questioning the influence of social media usage in Chad on religiosity using ethnographic methods. Additionally, she seeks to understand transregional linkages and thus, how media practices (re)create communities, belonging, and identity using a mixed methods approach of netnography and Social Network Analysis.