Boris SAMUEL

Boris SAMUEL’s research project deals with the “politics of prices” in Mauritania and Morocco. Intending to shed a light on the power relations surrounding prices formation, it proposes to analyze simultaneously the procedures of accountancy, macroeconomics and statistics and the popular discontent and struggles against high prices. It therefore studies quantification and administrative procedures from a political perspective, linking technical objects with large sociopolitical dynamics. Making its case by observing different products (fuel oil and gas, essential goods like food or beverages), it will lead to a close description of concrete practices involved in prices setting. These will appear as sites where bureaucratic reasoning is closely enmeshed with political domination and popular contest. At a time where sociopolitical tensions have arisen in many countries because of high prices, in particular in the Maghreb region after the 2011 uprising, this project will enable to study social struggles through the lens of economic and management practices.

Boris SAMUEL holds a PhD in political science. He defended his thesis entitled The macroeconomic production of the real. Formalities and power in Burkina Faso, Mauritania and Guadeloupe in December 2013 at Sciences Po Paris. Also holding a Master’s degree in economics and statistics from the École Nationale de la Statistique et de l’Administration Economique (ENSAE) in Paris, he has worked for 10 years as an expert in statistics, public finance and macroeconomics for various international organizations and governments in Africa. His research examines in detail technocratic practices across Africa and the Caribbean, to provide a historicised analysis of modes of government and power relations. Boris Samuel is the General Secretary of the Fonds d’Analyse des Sociétés Politiques (FASOPO). He teaches at Sciences Po Paris and at the Ecole de Gouvernance et d’Economie, in Rabat, Morocco.

SAMUEL Boris. Planning, instability and informality in Mauritania 2003-2011, Canadian Journal of Development Studies, forthcoming in 2014

SAMUEL Boris. L’Education Pour Tous au Burkina Faso. Une production bureaucratique du réel. In B. HIBOU, La bureaucratisation néolibérale, La Découverte, 2013.

SAMUEL Boris. Des statistiques de prix aux rapports de pouvoir : le rôle des analyses quantitatives dans le dialogue social en Guadeloupe depuis 2009. In WILLIAM J-C, RENO F and ALVAREZ F, Mobilisations sociales aux Antilles. Les événements de 2009 dans tous leurs sens, Karthala, 2012

SAMUEL Boris. Calcul macroéconomique et modes de gouvernement : les cas du Burkina Faso et de la Mauritanie. In HIBOU B. and SAMUEL Boris, La macroéconomie par le bas, Politique Africaine n°124, December 2011, p.101-126

SAMUEL Boris et HIBOU B., Macroéconomie et politique en Afrique – introduction au thème “La macroéconomie par le bas”. In HIBOU B. and SAMUEL B., La macroéconomie par le bas, Politique Africaine, n°124, December 2011, p.5-27.