Headshot of Dr.Sandra F. Joireman

Dr. Sandra F. Joireman

Weinstein Chair of International Studies
Professor of Political Science
Curriculum Vitae

  • Profile

    Sandra F. Joireman is the Weinstein Chair of International Studies and Professor of Political Science at the University of Richmond. She has published five books and numerous articles on property rights, law, and post-conflict return migration, most recently Peace, Preference, and Property: Return Migration after Violent Conflict (University of Michigan Press, 2022). She has served as a fellow or consultant with the UN, USAID, and the World Bank, and is affiliated with the Indian Ocean World Centre at McGill University. Joireman has held leadership roles in both academia and the private sector and has participated in international research collaborations on land, law, and post-conflict reconstruction. More information is available at: www.sandrajoireman.com.

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    • Grants and Fellowships

      Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, Partner Grant: Appraising Risk, Past and Present: Interrogating Historical Data to Enhance Understanding of Environmental Crises in the Indian Ocean World, 2018-2026

      Earhart Foundation Research Grant, “Where There Is No Government: Enforcing Property Rights in Common Law Africa,” 2009

      National Science Foundation Grant, “Enforcing Property Rights in Common Law Africa” #0549496, 2006-2008

      Law and Social Sciences Program Earhart Foundation Research Grant, “Enforcing Property Rights in Uganda,” 2006

      Earhart Foundation Research Grant, “Legal Institutions and the Rule of Law: comparing the effectiveness of common law and civil law countries,” 2002

    • Awards

      University of Richmond Distinguished Scholarship Award, 2025

      Faculty Fellow, University of Richmond, 2024

      Clinton High School Hall of Honor, inducted 2019

      Sanjaya Lall Prize for the Best Paper Published in Oxford Development Studies in 2018

      Fulbright Senior Scholar Award, Kosovo, 2012-2013

      Centennial Center Scholar, American Political Science Association, 2009

      APSA prize for the best poster presentation in Comparative/IR, 1996

      Fulbright Dissertation Fellowship Award, Ethiopia, 1993-1994

      Phi Beta Kappa

    • Presentations

      “Property Confiscation in the Zanzibar Revolution,” European Conference on African Studies, Prague, Czech Republic, June 28, 2025.

      “How (not) to communicate your research to policymakers,” Workshop designed and led at Research-Policy Links in the Indian Ocean World, Mainz, Germany June 23-24, 2025

      "Land, Livelihoods, and Repeated Displacement During Conflict: evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo," World Bank Land Conference,  Washington. May 8, 2025.

      "Securing Land, Securing Futures: The Gendered Impact of Climate and Conflict affected situations on Women’s Land Access," World Bank Land Conference, Washington. May 5, 2025.

      “Property Confiscation in the Zanzibar Revolution,” International Studies Association Annual Meeting, Chicago IL, March 5, 2025.

      "Customary Law in Nontraditional Settings," International Conference on Legal Pluralism, Commission on Legal Pluralism, Jakarta, Indonesia. January 14, 2025.

      "Property and legal pluralism in post-conflict settings," Invited Lecture. International Course on Legal Pluralism, Commission on Legal Pluralism, Jakarta. January 9, 2025.

      “Lessons and Legacies of Forced Displacement in Serbia,” Invited Lecture. Institute for European Studies, Belgrade, Serbia, October 10, 2024.

      “Gender and Forced Displacement in Cities,” Central and Eastern European International Studies Association-International Studies Association Joint International Conference, Rijeka, Croatia, June 21, 2024.

      “Property Confiscation in the Zanzibar Revolution,” Central and Eastern European International Studies Association-International Studies Association Joint International Conference, Rijeka, Croatia, June 20, 2024.

      “Property Confiscation in the Zanzibar Revolution,” Southeast Regional African Studies Seminar, Chapel Hill, NC March 9, 2024.

      "Gender and Forced Displacement in Cities," The World Bank, Washington, DC., November 16, 2023.

      "Post-conflict Restitution of Customary Land," International Studies Association, Ifrane, Morocco. June 21, 2023.

      “Return Migration after Violent Conflict,” Global Migration Working Group, United States Agency for International Development, Washington, DC, Feb 14, 2023.

      “Post-conflict Restitution of Customary Land: Guidelines and trajectories of change,” London School of Economics-University College London Land Politics Seminar, London, Dec 1, 2022.

      “Peace, Preference and Property: Return Migration After Violent Conflict,” Invited Lecture Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz and the Forthem European University Alliance, Mainz, Germany, Nov 29, 2022.

      “Doing No Harm while Doing Good: Climate and Conflict Sensitivity in Humanitarian Projects,”  Plenary address,  virtual international workshop, UN Food and Agriculture Organization Dryland Forestry Group, June 29, 2022.

      “Customary Law and Property Restitution After Violent Conflict,” African Studies Association Annual Meeting, virtual, November 16, 2021.

      “Local Land Governance and Conflict Resolution in the Sahel,” UN Food and Agriculture Organization Webinar, Drylands: at the crossroads between climate change and conflict, July 29, 2021.

      "Customary Tenure in Sub-Saharan Africa," Author's Workshop, African Land Flagship, World Bank, Washington, DC, United States, March 24, 2021.

    • Memberships

      American Political Science Association


      International Studies Association


      African Studies Association


      African Politics Conference Group

  • Selected Publications
    Books

    Joireman, Sandra F., Peace, Preference, and Property: Return Migration after Violent Conflict, (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press), 2022.

    Joireman, Sandra F., Where There is No Government: Enforcing Property Rights in Common Law Africa, (New York: Oxford University Press), 2011.

    Joireman, Sandra F. (ed.), Church, State and Citizen, (New York: Oxford University Press), 2009.

    Joireman, Sandra F., Nationalism and Political Identity, (London and New York: Continuum Press), 2003.

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, Property Rights and Political Development in Ethiopia and Eritrea: the State and Land, 1941-1974, (Oxford: James Currey/ Athens: Ohio University Press), 2000.

    Journal Articles

    Sandra F. Joireman and Julia Verne, “Property Confiscation in the Zanzibar Revolution,” forthcoming, African Affairs. https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adaf022

    Rachel Vanderhill, Sandra F. Joireman and Roza Tulepbayeva, “In the Shadow of the Dragon: Chinese soft power in Central Asia,” International Affairs, 101:4, 2025 1441- 1461. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiaf103

    Sandra F. Joireman and Rosine Tchatchoua-Djomo, “ Post-conflict Restitution of Customary Land: Guidelines and trajectories of change,” World Development, 168, August 2023, 106272.

    Sandra F. Joireman and Fidaa Haddad, “The Humanitarian-Development-Peace Nexus in practice:  Building Climate and Conflict Sensitivity into Humanitarian Projects,” Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, (62), 2023, 101272 doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2023.101272

    Catherine Boone, Fibian Lukalo, and Sandra F. Joireman “Promised Land: Settlement Schemes in Kenya, 1962 to 2016,” Political Geography, August 2021, Vol. 89, Article 102393.

    Rachel Vanderhill,  Sandra F. Joireman and Roza Tulepbayeva, “Between the bear and the dragon: multivectorism in Kazakhstan as a model strategy for secondary powers,”  International Affairs,  Volume 96, Issue 4, July 2020, 975–993.

    Emily Stubblefield and Sandra F. Joireman, “Law, Violence and Property Expropriation in Syria: Impediments to Restitution and Return, Land, 2019, 8(11), 173.

    Laura Meitzner Yoder and Sandra F. Joireman, “Possession and precedence: Juxtaposing customary and legal events to establish land authority,” Land, 2019, 8(8), 126.

    Rachel Vanderhill, Sandra Joireman and Roza Tulepbayeva, "Do Economic Linkages through FDI Lead to Institutional Change?: Assessing Outcomes  in Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan" Europe-Asia Studies, 2019. DOI: 10.1080/09668136.2019.1597019.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Future Rights for Future Citizens: children’s property rights in fragile environments,” Oxford Development Studies, 46(4), 2018:470-482.  This article received the Sanjaya Lall Prize for the best article in ODS in 2018.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Intergenerational Land Conflict in Northern Uganda:  children, customary law and return migration”, Africa, 88(1), 2018: 81–98.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Ethnic Violence, Local Security and Return Migration: Enclave communities in Kosovo,” International Migration, 55(5), October 2017, 122-135.

    Joireman, Sandra F. and Laura S Meitzner Yoder, “A Long Time Gone: Post-conflict Rural Property Restitution under Customary Law, Development and Change, 47(3), 2016, 563–585.

    Joireman, Sandra F., External Conditionalities and Institutional Change: Constructing Constituencies for the Rule of Law in Kosovo, East European Politics & Societies, 30, May 2016, 315-331. 

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Aiming for Certainty: The Kanun, Blood Feuds and the Ascertainment of Customary Law,“ The Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law, 46(2), 2014, pp. 235-248.

    Joireman, Sandra F. and Jason Brown, “Property: Human Right or Commodity?” Journal of Human Rights,12(2), 2013, pp. 165-179.

    Joireman, Sandra F., Adam Sawyer and Juliana Wilhoit, “A Different Way Home: Resettlement Patterns in Northern Uganda,” Political Geography, 31(4), 2012, 197-204.

    Henrysson, Elin and Sandra F. Joireman, ”On the Edge of the Law: Women’s Property Rights and Dispute Resolution in Kisii, Kenya,” Law & Society Review, Volume 43 (1), 2009, 39-60.

    Joireman, S.F. “The Mystery of Capital Formation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Women, property rights and customary law,” World Development, July 2008 (Vol. 36, No. 7), p.1233-1246.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Enforcing New Property Rights in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Ugandan Constitution and the 1998 Land Act,” Comparative Politics, 39(4), 463-480, July 2007.

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, “The Evolution of the Common Law:  Legal Development in Kenya and India,” Commonwealth and Comparative Politics, 41(2), July 2006.

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, “Colonization and the Rule of Law: comparing the effectiveness of common law and civil law countries,” Constitutional Political Economy, 15(4), December 2004. 

    Corey, Allison and Sandra F. Joireman, “Retributive Justice:  The Gacaca Courts in Rwanda,” African Affairs, 103:73-89, 2004. 

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, “War and State Formation: A Mennonite Critique,” Christian Scholars Review, 33(2), 181-195, 2004.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Justice for a Genocide?” Global Review of Ethnopolitics, Volume II, Number 2, January 2003.

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton “Inherited Legal Systems and Effective Rule of Law: Africa and the colonial legacy,” Journal of Modern African Studies, 39(4), 2001.

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, “Property Rights and the Role of the State: Evidence from the Horn of Africa,” Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 38, No. 1, October 2001.

    Joireman, Sandra, Good Fences Make Good Neighbors, Policy Brief, Number 14, University of California, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, July 2000.

    Bevan, Phillipa and Sandra Fullerton Joireman, “The Perils of Measuring Poverty: Identifying the ”Poor” in Rural Ethiopia,” Oxford Development Studies, Volume 25(3), (October 1997).

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, “Opposition Politics and Ethnicity in Ethiopia: We Will All Go Down Together,” Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.35, No.3, (September 1997).

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, “Contracting for Land: Lessons from Litigation in a Communal Tenure Area of Ethiopia,” Canadian Journal of African Studies, Vol. 30(3) (February 1996).

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, “The Minefield of Land Reform: Comments on the Eritrean Land Proclamation,” African Affairs, Vol. 95 Number 379, (April 1996).

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, A Political Model of Property Rights, Centro Studi Luca d’Agliano, Development Studies Working Papers, No. 95, (March 1996).

    Book Chapters

    Verne, Julia and Joireman, Sandra, Enteignungen und Flucht, Besitz und Belonging: 60 Jahre nach der Revolution in Sansibar, in: Wilhelmi, V., Theveßen, E. and Pfeil, F. (eds.) Geographien der Gewalt – Die Welt in Unruhe. Konflikte und ihre Wirkungsmacht, Kontaktstudium Geographie: Mainz, forthcoming 2025.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Property and Land Tenure, “Handbook of African Economic Development, James Murphy and Padraig Carmody, eds., Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 2024, pp. 268-281.

    Joireman, Sandra F. “Customary Law,” Elgar Encyclopedia of Development, Matthew Clarke Ed., Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd., 2023, 138-142.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “The State,” Handbook of Anabaptism, Brian Brewer ed., London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2022, pp. 237-250.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Resigning their Rights? Impediments to Women's Property Ownership in Kosovo,” Global Trends in Land Tenure Reforms: Gender Impacts, Caroline Archambault and Annelies Zoomers eds., Routledge, 2015, pp. 237-250.

    Joireman, Sandra F. “Entrapment or Freedom: enforcing customary property rights regimes in common law Africa,” Jeanmarie Fenrich, Paolo Galizzi and Tracy Higgins, eds., The Future of African Customary Law, (New York:  Cambridge University Press, 2011).

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Anabaptism and the State: An Uneasy Coexistence,” Church, State and Citizen, Sandra F. Joireman, ed., (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).

    Joireman, Sandra F., “HIV/AIDS in Africa,” Africa- US Relations: Strategic Encounters, Donald Rothchild and Edmond Keller (eds.), (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006), p. 147-166.

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, “Secession and its aftermath: Eritrea,” Managing and Settling Ethnic Conflicts: Comparative perspectives from Africa, Asia and Europe, Ulrich Schneckener and Stefan Wolff (eds.), London: Hurst Press and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003.

    Joireman, Sandra F. and Thomas S. Szayna, “The Ethiopian Prospective Case,” in Thomas S. Szayna, ed., Identifying Potential Ethnic Conflict: Application of a Process Model, (Santa Monica, CA:  RAND, 2000).

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, "Land Contracts and Traditional Tenure," Land Tenure and Land Policy in Ethiopia after the Derg, (Trondheim, Norway: Reprosentralen AVH, 1994).

    Other

    Sachdeva, Swati and Sandra Joireman, “Leveraging results-based financing for urban forced displacement,  Sustainable Cities Blog, World Bank, January 22, 2025.

    Joireman, Sandra, Swati Sachdeva, and Victoria Stanley, “Displaced Women and Girls in Cities,” Sustainable Cities Blog, World Bank, February 21, 2024.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Gender and Forced Displacement in Cities,” Washington DC: The World Bank, October 2023.

    How to Identify Gender Gaps in Urban Forced Displacement: Guidance Note,” Washington DC: The World Bank, September 2023.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Displaced people must be empowered to return home after conflict,” London School of Economics, Africa Blog, March 3, 2023.

    FAO, CGIAR & Care, “Doing No Harm while Doing Good:  Climate and Conflict Sensitivity in Humanitarian Projects” Rome, FAO, CGIAR & Mercy Corps, August 2022.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Ukrainian refugees might not return home, even long after the war eventually ends,” The Conversation, April 5, 2022.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Customary Tenure in Sub-Saharan Africa,” Prepared for the World Bank, Office of the Chief Economist, AFRCE Regional Flagship Series, Improving Africa’s Land Governance for Economic Transformation, April 2021.

    Sandra F. Joireman, Roza Tulepbayeva and Rachel Vanderhill, “Winning in second place: lessons from the foreign policy of Kazakhstan,” International Affairs Blog, Sept 30, 2020.

    Fibian Lukalo, Catherine Boone, and Sandra Joireman.  Mapping Settlement Schemes in Kenya.  Nairobi: National Commission, 2019. Dataset.  ISBN 978-9966-1928-5-1.  Accessible at https://dataverse.harvard.edu/dataset.xhtml?persistentId=doi:10.7910/DVN/YSTBKU

    Lukalo, F., C. Boone, S. Joireman. Mapping Settlement Schemes in Kenya, Report.  (Nairobi:  Kenyan National Land Commission), 2019.

    Joireman, Sandra F.,  Awraja Courts, Ethiopia and Eritrea, 1947-1974”. Dataset.  Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2020-07-15.

    Joireman, Sandra F., High Court, Ethiopia, 1947-1974. ICPSR37819-v1. Dataset.

    Joireman, Sandra, “Endline National Survey on Property Rights,” USAID Property Rights Program, Kosovo, March 2019.

    Fibian Lukalo, Sandra Joireman and Catherine Boone, “Research for Sound Land Policy,” The Star, (Kenya), Jun. 25, 2018.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Midterm National Survey on Property Rights in Kosovo,” USAID Property Rights Program, July 2017.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “International Law is Limited on the Rights and Treatment of Refugees and Displaced People,” 2017 Hunger Report: Fragile Environments, Resilient Communities, Washington DC, Bread for the World Institute, 2016, pp. 38-39.

    Joireman, Sandra, “Kosovo’s parliament is being tear-gassed because of a border dispute. Here’s how it could get worse.” Blog post, the Monkey Cage, September 8, 2016.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Can Hunger End?” The Christian Century, 133(12), June 8, 2016.

    Joireman, Sandra F., Book Review, “Women, Land & Justice in Tanzania,” By Helen Dancer, African Studies Review, 58 (3), December 2015, pp. 241-242.

    Joireman, Sandra F., USAID Report, “Gender, Property and Economic Opportunity in Kosovo,” Report for the USAID Kosovo Property Rights Project, January 2015.

    Joireman, Sandra F., ”Rebuilding Communities after Violent Conflict: Informal Justice Systems and Resource Access,Harvard Human Rights Journal, November 2014.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “The Property Rights of Refugees and Internally Displaced Persons: Beyond Restitution,” By Anneke Smit, Journal of Refugee Studies, 2013, 26: 597-599.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “An Abundance of Violence and a Poverty of Words,” Ethnopolitics, Volume 9 Issue 2, 2010, 275-279.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Food Insecurity in the United States,” Mother Earth Sister Peace, Winter 2010, p.6.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Killing Neighbors:  Webs of Violence in Rwanda,” Lee Ann Fujii, Nations and Nationalism, 16(1), 2010, 198-200.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Still Hungry: Does aid do more harm than good?” The Christian Century, Vol. 126 (26), December 29, 2009, 21- 23.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “The Ethiopian Revolution: War in the Horn of Africa,” African Studies Review, 52(3), December 2009, 178-179.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Myths and Realities in the Distribution of Socioeconomic Resources and Political Power in Ethiopia,” Kasahun Woldemariam, African Studies Review, 50(1), April 2007, p.166.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Killing Zone: What Can Be Done in Darfur?”, The Christian Century, 123 (24) p. 10-11, Nov 28, 2006.

    Joireman, Sandra, “The Importance of Securing Property Rights in Africa,” The Forum, 13(3), (Americus, GA: Habitat for Humanity, 2006), 5-7.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “An Unholy Trinity: AIDS, Poverty and Insecure Property Rights for Women in Africa,” Human Rights and Human Welfare Working Paper, no. 34, June 2006.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Overcoming Apartheid: Can Truth Reconcile a Divided Nation?” The Christian Century, 123(13), June 27, 2006. pp. 34-35.

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, “On Voice and the Responsibility of Knowing,” Anabaptist-Mennonite Scholars Network Newsletter, Fall 2005.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Ethiopia,” 2004 Year in Review, (Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.), 2005.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Ethiopia,” Britannica Book of the Year, (Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.), 2005.

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, “Book Review: Lyda Favali and Roy Pateman, Blood, Land and Sex: Legal Pluralism in Eritrea,” African Studies Review, 47(1), 236-237.

    Joireman, Sandra F., “Ethiopian/Eritrean Border War,” History Behind the Headlines, (Detroit: Gale Group, 2000).

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, Book Review: Siegfried Pausewang, The 1994 Election and Democracy in Ethiopia, Human Rights Report No. 4, (November 1994) and Kiflu Tadesse, The Generation, (Silver Spring, Maryland: Independent Publishers, 1993) in The Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol. 33 Number 4, (December 1995).

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton, “Book Review: Jean Ensminger, Making a Market: The Institutional Transformation of an African Society,” APSA-CP Newsletter, Volume 4, Number 2, p.8, Summer 1993.

    Joireman, Sandra Fullerton and Winston Wells, “Book Review: Political Economic Interactions in Economic Policy Reform,” Robert H. Bates and Anne O. Krueger (Eds.).  APSA-CP Newsletter, Volume 4, Number 1, p.10, Winter 1993.

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