Adib Bencherif

Adib Bencherif is an associate professor at the School of Applied Politics at the University of Sherbrooke and director of the Interdisciplinary Laboratory on Risks and Crises (LIRIC). Since the fall of 2026, he has also served as director of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair’s Observatory on the Middle East and North Africa at UQÀM. He is a research associate at numerous research institutions, including the Sahel Research Group at the University of Florida’s Center for African Studies. He earned his Ph.D. from the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the Sahel Research Group at the University of Florida (2019–2021). His main areas of research focus on security issues, questions of identity, and political violence in North Africa and the Sahel. His research focuses particularly on nomadic communities, specifically the Tuareg. An advocate for an applied approach to the social sciences, he provides training in political risk analysis and regularly participates in consulting activities to facilitate conflict analysis and resolution, as well as the fight against disinformation. He has published numerous scholarly articles in French and English and has edited several books, including a collective volume on polycrises and a book on political risk analysis.

Expertise

• Sahel-Sahara
• North Africa
• Risks and Crises

Selected Publications

• Adib Bencherif et Abdoulaye Kane (dir.), Identity and Conflict in the Sahel. Narratives on Tuareg and Fulani, Indiana University Press, à paraître, mai 2027.
• Adib Bencherif (dir.), Les polycrises : perspectives sociales et scientifiques, Presses de l’Université Laval, à paraître, 2026.
• Adib Bencherif, « Des rébellions armées à une relation apaisée entre les Touaregs et l’autorité centrale au Niger : récits des élites touarègues dans le contexte de la crise nord-malienne », Revue canadienne des études africaines, 2025, 59(1), 43-65.
• Adib Bencherif. « Political Nomadism and the Jihadist ‘Safe Haven’ in Northern Mali: An Entry Point through Tuareg Relational Political Dynamic », The Journal of Modern African Studies, 61(4), 2023, 473-494.
• Adib Bencherif & Frédéric Mérand (dir.), L’analyse du risque politique (PUM, 2021).