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Mahmood Mamdani (b. 1947 in Kampala, Uganda) is the Herbert Lehman Professor of Government in the Departments of Anthropology and Political Science at Columbia University.

He is also the current President of the Council for Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) Dakar, Senegal. One of his best known books is When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism and the Genocide in Rwanda (Princeton University Press, 2001).

Mamdani's reputation as an expert in African history, politics and international relations has made him an important voice in contemporary debates about Africa. His book Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism (Princeton University Press, 1996) won the prestigious Herskovits Award of the African Studies Association of the USA (1998).

At Uganda's independence from Britain in 1962, Mr. Mamdani was offered a scholarship by the United States government. He attended the University of Pittsburgh and studied for his Ph.D. at Harvard, where he led graduate students in a strike to protest a tuition hike.

He returned to Uganda, only to be forced to leave the country by the dictator Idi Amin, who deported the Indians and confiscated their property. Mr. Mamdani lived as a refugee in Britain before getting a teaching job at the University of Dar es Salaam, in Tanzania.

He returned to Uganda when Idi Amin was overthrown and Milton Obote came to power. In the next years he did adult literacy programs and political activities among railway workers and started working at the Makerere University in Kampala.

His wife is the film director Mira Nair.

Contents 1 Education 2 Selected Books: 3 Selected Articles: 4 Links

• B.A., University of Pittsburgh, 1967.
• M.A., A.A.L.D., Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, 1969.
• Ph.D., Harvard University, 1974.
• Non-English languages known: French, Gujarati, Hindi, Luganda, Punjabi, Swahili, Urdu.
• He has taught at the University of Dar-es-Salaam (1973-79), Makerere University (1980-93), and University of Cape Town (1996-99) and was the founding director of Centre for Basic Research in Kampala, Uganda (1987-96).

Mamdani is married to the Indian film director Mira Nair. They have a son Zohran.

• Good Muslim Bad Muslim: America, The Cold War, and the Roots of Terror. (New York: Pantheon/Random House, 2004).
• When Victims Become Killers: Colonialism, Nativism, and Genocide in Rwanda. (Princeton Univ. Press, 2001).
• When Does a Settler Become a Native? Reflections of the Colonial Roots of Citizenship in Equatorial and South Africa. Text of Inaugural Lecture as A. C. Jordan Professor of African Studies, University of Cape Town, Lecture Theatre 1, Education Building, Middle Campus, Wednesday 13 May 1998, 8.15 p.m.
• Report of the CODESRIA Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo. September, 1997. Text of report submitted to the General Assembly of the United Nations
• Council for the Development of Social Research in Africa (CODESRIA) in Dakar, Senegal. December 14-18, 1998, page 2
• Beyond Rights Talk and Culture Talk: Comparative essays on Rights and Culture. ed. (St. Martin's Press, 2000).
• Crisis and Reconstruction -- African Perspectives: Two Lectures (with Colin Leys). (Nordiska Afrikainsinstutet, 1998).
• Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. (Princeton University Press, 1996).
• And Fire Does not Always Beget Ash: Critical Reflections on the NRM. (1996).
• Imperialism and Fascism in Uganda. (Africa World Press, Inc., 1983).
• Politics and Class Formation in Uganda. (Monthly Review Press, 1976).
• Myth of Population Control. (Monthly Review Press, 1973)
• From Citizen to Refugee (?)

• "The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency", in London Review of Books, Vol. 29, No. 5, 8 March 2007.

Columbia University ([1]).

Nermeen Shaikh, Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: AsiaSource Interview with Mahmood Mamdani ([2]).

When Victims Become Killers:Colonialism, Nativism, and the Genocide in Rwanda, published by Princeton University, 2001, Introductory Chapter ([3]).