Bindas research sits at the intersection of Hip-Hop pedagogy, youth engagement, migration, and policy in West and Central Africa. She explores these themes through examinations of epistemic disobedience, the socio-cultural context of language, the role of the state in structuring access to social services, and the socio-political history of Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire. She received her B.A. in Religion and History from Nebraska Wesleyan University, and her M.A in History from the University of Rochester. Binda completed her doctoral studies/PhD in 2020 at the University of South Carolina. She has an extensive background in teaching, research evaluation, and rule of law through her work with the Rule of Law Collaborative and the Research, Evaluation, and Measurement Center at the University of South Carolina.

Bindas research has been funded by the NSEP David L. Boren Fellowship, the Fulbright Public Policy Fellowship, and the Grace Jordan McFadden Professors Program. 

Research Interests

• Sociopolitical history of west and central Africa
• Hip-Hop pedagogy
• Reverse migration
• Qualitative studies
• Rule of law
• Language
• Youth engagement
• International development

Current Research Projects at Scripts

Binda is currently developing multiple articles stemming from her PhD dissertation research. These articles cover civic education, epistemic disobedience, comparative case study, and youth engagement.

She is also developing her next major research project, which considers the life courses of young African women educated abroad and returning to work in West Africa. Bindas research examines the various aspects of re-culturization within the Diaspora to consider how young female returnees, manage, navigate and re-appropriate life back on the continent, specifically Senegal and Cote d’Ivoire. This project looks at what happens when immigrants choose to do, what government agencies in their adopted countries hope they do, which is, returning to their home country.  Be it out of visa requirement, attachment to “home,” or the urge to “save” the continent, young, educated, African women are returning back to the continent (not always their home countries), with a personal and professional zeal. This is a participatory active research (PAR) project that considers the guiding reasons behind young Black women relocating to the African continent and the obstacles and opportunities they have encountered within and outside the workplace.