Ben Page is a lecturer at UCL and his research interests are broadly located within the field of development geography. He is particularly interested in the way African families, communities and places accommodate change. He is also interested in the relations between nature and society and the capacity of things (water, cities, associations, trees, meetings, soil) to provide a commentary on the interdependent relationship between environments and politics. Much of his work has focused on water supply in West Africa as a way of linking different histories and places to broader development questions about communities, the state, infrastructure, services, participatory governance, deliberative democracy and the transformation of the landscape.Claire Mercer is a Lecturer in Geography at the University of Leicester, UK. Her research is underpinned by a concern to examine critically the material and social consequences of the pursuit of 'development' in sub-Saharan Africa. Over the last ten years she has undertaken research in Tanzania and, more recently, Cameroon, and has published on the changing character and work of associational life (NGOs, hometown associations); geographies of governance with a focus on civil society and partnership; the role of the Internet in rural Africa; and postcolonial theories of development.Martin Evans did his postgraduate studies in Geography at the School of Oriental and African Studies and King's College London.

Besides diasporas and development, his research examines the complex intersections of conflict, natural resources and livelihoods in sub-Saharan Africa. This includes a critique of the 'greed and grievance' debate and reappraisal of the concept of 'war economies' by resituating them in their historical contexts and amid contemporary global inequity. He is also interested in how people gain their livelihoods in conflict and post-conflict landscapes, with a particular focus on Casamance, Senegal, scene of West Africa's longest-running civil conflict. His ongoing research there focuses on the return of the long-term displaced to their villages and reconstruction of their homes, infrastructure and the rural economy.