The Expert is a specialist in the history and anthropology of West Africa, especially related to conflict, gender-based violence, and traditional harmful practices. For the past 17 years they have lived and worked across West Africa, in particular Liberia and Ghana, as well as Benin, Burkina Faso, and Côte d'Ivoire. Since 2019 The Expert has worked as the Director of an Oxfordshire-based research company, Résolu Ltd. Prior to this, they held positions as Assistant Professor in Gender Violence at London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Tutor in Gender, Geography & Environment at University of Oxford, and various other roles related to gender-based violence research in West Africa. Their work has been published in Routledge, Third World Quarterly, and Democracy In Africa. The Expert completed their DPhil at University of Oxford School of Geography and the Environment in 2016.
The Expert is an expert in reproductive rights and justice, gender, and customary law (marriage, divorce, inheritance, mediation). She has contextual expertise on the political institutions involved in FGC/M. She also is an expert on resource extraction and gender.
In asylum cases, The Expert regularly provides reports on LGBTQI issues; child abuse; sexual abuse/assault; gender-based violence/domestic violence; child soldiers; forced marriage; human trafficking; FGM/FGC; Likelihood of destitution or homelessness; ethnic, religious, or tribal discrimination or persecution; forced conscription/refoulment; ex-combatant reintegration; land issues; criminal deportees; risk of torture or political persecution; risk from state actors, risk from non-state actors; risk of retaliation; sufficiency of protection; possibility of safe internal relocation; healthcare access; health systems capacity; mental illness; HIV/AIDS; specialized medical services.
Since 2012 The Expert has produced six COI expert reports for asylum cases in the US and UK. Most of these cases were highly complex, involving political and/or ethnic persecution, torture, ex-combatant activities, gender-based violence, and FGC/M.
Forthcoming, British Medical Journal (BMJ) Open: “Learn in Peace, educate without violence: Preliminary evidence for the effects of a school-based violence prevention intervention in Cote d’Ivoire”. Karen Devries, Manuela Balliet, Kerrie Thornhill, Louise Knight, Fanny Procureur, Ariane Yah Bernadette Ndjoré, Dédou N’Guessan, Kate Merrill, Mustapha Dally, Elizabeth Allen, Mazeda Hossain, Benjamin Cislaghi, Clare Tanton, Lucia Quintero.
Gender, Place & Culture themed selection, ‘The Ethics of Transnational Feminist Research and Activism’, co-authored with Hamsa Rajan. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2019.1618246
Under peer review: Feminist Media Studies: Crushed Diamond Face Crème and the Masque of Global Death.
Thornhill, Kerrie. “Power, Predation, and Postwar State Formation: The Public Discourse of Ritual Child Rape in Liberia.” Third World Thematics: A Third World Quarterly Journal, April 21, 2017, 1–19. doi:10.1080/23802014.2017.1314769.
Thornhill, Kerrie (ed), 2016: Mystiques: a feminist homage to Roland Barthes. The Oxford Feminist E-Press (OxFEP). Stable URL: https://oxfordfeministepress.uk/mystiques. ISBN: 978-1-912071-00-5
Book chapter [peer reviewed], ‘You must sit on the old mat to ply the new one: rethinking threatened masculinities and postconflict gender violence in Liberia’, in J. Freedman (ed) Engaging Men in the Fight Against Gender Violence: Case Studies from Africa. Palgrave MacMillan, 2012.