Biography
Dr Kamau Wairuri is a researcher, educator and policy consultant with expertise in the politics of policing, violence and criminal justice in Africa. Presently, he is a lecturer in criminology at Edinburgh Napier University (Edinburgh, United Kingdom) and a Research Fellow at the Institute of Public Policy and Governance at the Strathmore University Business School (Nairobi, Kenya).
With a geographical focus on Africa (especially Kenya), his research is focused on four major themes:
(1) the politics of state policing, especially relating to the police abuse, police reform and police accountability,
(2) the policing of people belonging to marginalised, stigmatised and criminalised groups — especially poor, young men, sex workers, queer people and people who use drugs — who are over-policed and under-protected by the police, and
(3) Violence, including violent crime and political violence (terrorism and riots.
(4) Formal and informal mechanisms of handling interpersonal disputes.
He has published some of his work in respected peer-reviewed academic journals, such as African Affairs, and in books.
Kamau has also written for popular audiences in Kenyan newspapers (Daily Nation, The Standard and The East African) and respected analytical blogs such as African Arguments, The Conversation Africa and The Elephant. He is the host of The Kenyanist, a podcast that explores the social and political issues that Kenyans face.
He holds a PhD in African Studies from the University of Edinburgh, an MSc in African Studies from the University of Oxford and a Bachelor of Arts degree (Political Science and Sociology) from the University of Nairobi.