Michel Doortmont (1959) is reader in international relations and African studies at the University of Groningen (NL) and senior researcher and project leader at the African Studies Centre Leiden (NL). In his research he focusses on the history of West Africa, more in particular on state and identity formation from precolonial to postcolonial times, social elites and their role in colonial society and the social history of colonial connections between Africa and Europe. He has a special interest in the history of photography in Africa and the use of images in identity and state formation in the colonial period.
Doortmont is co-editor of the History in Africa: A Journal of Method, published by Cambridge University Press, and the book series African Sources for African History and Sources for African History, both published by Brill Publishers in Leiden. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and academic coordinator of the Erasmus Mundus Action 2 Programme EU-SATURN, for academic mobility between South Africa and the European Union.