2025 African Studies Association (ASA) Annual Meeting; Atlanta, Georgia

Conference: 2025 African Studies Association (ASA) Annual Meeting; Atlanta, Georgia
November 20 – 22, 2025

Presentation: “Refined Sufism, Crude Nationalism: Religion and Oil Politics in Libya, 1951-1969”

REPORT:

From November 20th to 22nd, 2024, supported by a Graduate Student Conference Travel Grant from the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, I was able to participate in the Annual Conference of the African Studies Association (ASA), which was convened in Atlanta, Georgia. The research I presented, entitled “Refined Sufism, Crude Nationalism: Religion and Oil Politics in Libya, 1951-1969,” examines the role of Sufi religious teachings in the development and diplomatic efforts of the Libyan royal family with particular focus on the nationalization of oil in Libya and efforts to build a Cold War development strategy that centered oil extraction and export. Drawing on archival research conducted at the Historical Diplomatic Archive of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Cooperation, digital collections of the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library, and intellectual history of North African Sufism, I analyzed the different legal and diplomatic attentions given to oil extraction, refinement, and sales attempting to remedy the under conceptualization of religion in earlier scholarship.

By presenting this work at ASA and workshopping an earlier version of the conference paper at with the Liu Institute’s Southwest Asia and North Africa Working Group, I was able to receive feedback to develop the analytical framework and approach to the research. Receiving feedback from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including history, political science, anthropology, peace studies, and religious studies, allowed me to consider a variety of approaches that I could employ to further develop this research into a chapter of my dissertation in the future. Moving forward, I plan to conduct additional archival research in the United States and North Africa to create a more complete understanding of the political and economic dynamics of oil development and export in Libya during the first decades of the Cold War.

Beyond the presentation of my research, participating in the ASA Annual Conference allowed me to experience an interdisciplinary research community doing work that is diverse temporally, geographically, and thematically. The keynote lectures and other signature events I attended introduced me to a range of resources and publications that I plan to use in the future when teaching courses about Africa and the African diaspora communities. Additionally, specialized research panels allowed me to connect with fellow graduate students and senior researchers conducting work similar to my own. I was able to connect with three senior Ottomanist scholars whose work looks at late Ottoman Africa and the transition to colonial rule.

Finally, while in Atlanta, I took advantage of research opportunities to explore collections related to my broader interests in peace studies and history. I visited the National Center for Civil and Human Rights to explore their exhibitions on the history of human rights and civil rights discourses in the United States. They currently have a specialized archival exhibition about the work of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that showcases archival materials from Dr. King’s personal papers that are held at the archive of Morehouse College.