Book launch
The State in Relief: Civil Servants and Disaster Governance in Malawi
- Date
- Thursday 15 October 2026
- Time
- Address
-
Wijnhaven
Turfmarkt 99
2511 DP The Hague - Room
- Spanish Stairs
Join us for the launch of Dr Tanja Hendriks’ forthcoming book The State in Relief: Civil Servants and Disaster Governance in Malawi, published by Hurst and the International African Institute.
In this book, Tanja Hendriks explores the role of civil servants in disaster governance in Malawi, examining how state actors respond to crises and how disaster relief is shaped by everyday practices of governance.
The book launch will begin with a short presentation by the author, followed by a panel discussion with scholars and experts who will reflect on the themes raised in the book. The discussion will provide an opportunity to explore broader questions around disaster governance, humanitarianism, and the role of the state, followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
The event will take place at the Spanish Stairs at Leiden University’s Wijnhaven campus in The Hague. The event will also include hybrid participation for selected speakers.
Programme
15.30 – Welcome and introduction
15.35 – Presentation of The State in Relief by Dr Tanja Hendriks
15.50 – Panel discussion
16.40 – Q&A with the audience
17.00 – Closing
About the book
In March 2019, one of the deadliest tropical cyclones in the southern hemisphere to date wreaked havoc across several African countries. In Malawi, Cyclone Idai affected more than one million citizens directly.
In this vivid ethnography, Tanja D. Hendriks details the decisions and dilemmas of Malawian civil servants in disaster response efforts after Idai. In a context in which relief has become routine, she explores how district-based public officials managed numerous and competing demands placed on them by colleagues, citizens, chiefs, humanitarians and donors. With the state initially appearing incompetent, ill-equipped or even irrelevant, she shows how aid interventions throw the state itself into relief, and render visible civil servants’ sense of duty, while also revealing the challenges facing central government.
Disputing Afropessimist narratives that depict African states as negligent or unable to care for their citizens, Hendriks reveals how the aid-dependent Malawian state remains crucial to disaster governance despite chronic resource scarcity and limited capacity. Contributing to the anthropology of bureaucracy and the state, the book underlines that disasters are neither natural nor isolated events, and offers a novel perspective on disaster relief interventions, state–citizen relations and sovereignty in the Anthropocene.
Speakers
Tanja Hendriks
Tanja Hendriks is an assistant professor at the Institute of Security and Global Affairs and a research affiliate with the African Studies Centre Leiden. With a background in cultural anthropology, development studies and African Studies, her ethnographic research focuses on state bureaucracies and humanitarianism in contexts of disaster. Her empirical focus is on Malawi and her new research project 'Taking a Risk on Disasters' examines future-oriented forms of disaster governance.
Valerie de Koeijer
Chair of the event
Valerie de Koeijer is assistant professor Conflict Resolution and International Organisation aan het Institute of Security and Global Affairs van de Universiteit Leiden. Haar onderzoek richt zich op de reacties op rampen en klimaatverandering, met een focus op conflict en samenwerking in de relaties tussen verschillende actoren die aan deze reacties werken, zoals overheden en internationale organisaties. Ze is ook geïnteresseerd in kwalitatieve methoden en onderzoeksethiek, vooral in uitdagende contexten.
Lydie Cabane
Lydie Cabane is a senior assistant professor in crisis governance at ISGA, Leiden University. She studies how governance systems and public policies shape crisis and disaster responses and, conversely, how crisis and disaster policies shape state transformation and governance. As a sociologist and political scientist, her research focuses on explaining what shapes crisis and disaster policies and the expansion of crisis policies across policy domains. She is an associate member of the Crisis Lab at Sciences Po Paris and the Centre for the Analysis of Risk and Regulation at LSE. She is the author of The Government of Disasters: State Formation and Disaster Management in South Africa (Palgrave, 2023) and currently develops a research agenda on environmental risk protection and climate adaptation.
Flávio Eiró
Flávio Eiró is an assistant professor of social and cultural anthropology at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. His work focuses on state-citizen relations in the field of politics and policy implementation. He has published widely on issues surrounding race, identity politics and anti-poverty policies in Brazil, developing decolonial approaches to inequality research. Currently he serves as co-convenor of the EASA network on Anthropology of the State and as editor of Etnofoor and the European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology. He has recently edited the special issue ‘Trust in the state: Negotiating legal and bureaucratic encounters justice’ in the Journal of Legal Anthropology and his book Identity politics and electoral competition in Brazil is forthcoming.
Happy Kayuni
Happy Kayuni is Professor in University of Malawi’s Politics and Government Department and holds a PhD (Political Science) from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. He also holds a Master of Public Administration degree (MPA) Distinction from the University of Stellenbosch (2004) and won numerous awards over the course of his studies. He has co-edited books and authored (or co-authored) over seventy peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters. His publications are in the following areas: public sector governance, ethnicity, gender in politics, public sector reform and management, public policy and development.
Boniface Dulani
Boniface Dulani is an associate professor of Political Science in the Department of Politics and Government at the University of Malawi. He earned his doctorate in political science at Michigan State University (MSU) and in 2020, he assumed the position of director of surveys at Afrobarometer. He has published and consulted widely on African politics, focusing mostly on Democracy and Governance; Political Economy Analysis, local development; education; public health; youth and the participation of women in politics. His work on presidential term limits, executive succession, democracy, elections, social movements, legislature and executive relations, tolerance, elections, Covid-19, among several topics, has appeared in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes.