Aurore Iradukunda

She is the recipient of the UKRI project ‘Pan-African Frontiers: The Remaking of African Politics in World Politics’ PhD studentship award.  Her thesis explores lost histories of anticolonial nationalism and mnemonic politics in the postcolony, using the PAIGC (African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cabo Verde) underground struggle in Cabo Verde as a case study. 

It is primarily concerned with the memorialization of Cabo Verde’s liberation struggle, its construction, institutionalization and contestation. It further questions the socio-political ramifications of this memorialization and the histories lost through this process on the emergence of locally rooted political imagination and resistance repertoires.   

Aurore is also an active member of various academic communities, including SOAS and the Political Studies Association UK (PSA). At SOAS, she is an active member of the Centre for Pan-African Studies where she has supported the Centre’s research and event agenda, spearheading and chairing events such as the event series ‘Claim No Easy Victories’: Centennial Reflections on Amilcar Cabral's Legacy’ to further reflections on anticolonial and anti-imperialist political thought and practice at SOAS. She also serves as the Events and Communications Officer for the Department of Politics and International Studies, promoting the Department’s diverse research and policy initiatives at SOAS and beyond.

Aurore also currently serves as the EDI Representative for the PSA’s African Politics Specialist Group. Through this role, she is particularly passionate about furthering the visibility of African Politics within the PSA and the field of Political Sciences as a whole, as well as to create more research and networking opportunities for African and diaspora scholars. To this effect, she curates a monthly roundup of opportunities on LinkedIn for African and diaspora scholars in her free time.  

As an inspiring educator, Aurore is deeply inspired by the liberatory traditions of Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed and bell hooks’ Teaching to Transgress. She has taught on modules such as ‘Decolonising World Politics’ and delivered a guest lecture on ‘anticolonial nationalism and its alternatives’ at SOAS. She approaches facilitation and teaching as a co-constructed space of knowledge production, emphasizing horizontal dialogue, collective reflection, and the classroom as a "homeplace" where students feel safe, heard, and intellectually challenged. Prior to joining SOAS, Aurore worked at various organizations including the International Labour Organization, Doctors of the World UK, and Apathy is Boring on thematics related to African development, migrant health, African diaspora engagement, political education, and youth and civic engagement. She is the co-founder of SAYASPORA (2015-2019), an African women-led mediatech and has co-hosted the Migration & Diaspora Podcast where she focused on African diaspora affairs.    

Aurore holds an MSc in Health Policy, Planning and Financing from the London School of Economics and Political Science and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and a BA&Sc in African Studies and Molecular Cell Biology from McGill University.

Her broader research interests include the Political Underground, anticolonial worldmaking, Pan-Africanism, Black Geographies, radical pedagogy, and mnemonic politics.