The “Rereading the State ‘from Below’, in Fragile States and Societies in Conflict” project was initiated in early 2022 and should yield publications and applications for external funding by late 2024. In June 2022, project members organized the first virtual meeting of the network, which allowed the broader appropriation of the project by colleagues at uOttawa and in universities in the South. In February 2023, a second virtual meeting was organized, with an expanded network of colleagues and partners. This meeting allowed the team to establish working groups in/for each country:

• Burkina Faso, led by Zakaria Soré at Joseph Ki-Zerbo University and Philippe Frowd at uOttawa
• Haiti, led by Stephen Baranyi and Célia Romulus at uOttawa
• Lebanon, led by Ruby Dagher at uOttawa and Jamal Mouawad at the American University of Beirut
• Mali, led by Abdoul Sogodogo at the University of Bamako and Sadio Soukouna at UQAM