Dr Joanna Allan

Joanna's research focuses on resistance to neocolonial natural resource exploitation, histories of women's anti-colonial resistance movements, Saharawi and Equatoguinean literature and oral tradition, environmental justice, phosphates and food systems. In 2022, she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize (languages and literature category) for her work. 

Joanna's book with colleagues Hamza Lakhal and Moiti Mohammed Azrouk "Poetics of Diplomacy: The Western Saharan Anti-Colonial Struggle in Verse," is under contract with Palgrave. The e-book will be accompanied with audio recordings of the featured poems and audible life histories of the poets, many of which you can listen to here: https://hosting.northumbria.ac.uk/westernsaharapoetry/featured-poets/. 

Joanna's second book Saharan Winds: Energy Systems and Aeolian Imaginaries in Western Sahara (West Virginia Press, 2024) focuses on wind imaginaries and how they shape the development of, and politics mediated by, energy systems. It won the Association for Study of Literature and the Environment (ASLE) UK book prize, was shortlisted for the ASLE-USA book prize, and was longlisted for the Bread and Roses prize.

Joanna's first book Silenced Resistance: Women, Dictatorships, and Genderwashing in Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea (Wisconsin University Press, 2019) offers histories of women's resistance to colonialism, occupation and dictatorships in Spain's colonies in Africa during and since the Spanish colonial period.  It was shortlisted for the 2020 African Studies Association Fage and Oliver prize for best book on Africa and was runner up in the 2020 International Studies Association’s biennial Feminist Theory and Gender Studies book prize. 

Before beginning her PhD, Joanna worked at National Energy Action, the UK Consortium on HIV/AIDS and International Development and London Councils European Service. She has been part of the Saharawi solidarity movement for years, including as Chair of Western Sahara Resource Watch 2013-2015.