On December 13th the edited volume Drylands Facing Change: Interventions, Investments and Identities got published. The book addresses the changing dynamics in drylands in Africa, the Middle East, and Central/Inner Asia as a result of conflict, mobile communication, urbanization, and religiosity amongst others.
Mirjam co-wrote two open access chapters. One is titled Drylands connected: Mobile communication and changing power positions in (nomadic) pastoral societies and addresses the importance of social media and mobile phone usage in the changing connectivities among people living in drylands. The second is titled Religious movements in the drylands: Ethnicity, jihadism, and violent extremism, wherein Mirjam and Han van Dijk discuss the impact of extremist violence on the political and economic development of drylands.