essays - andrew zadel

essays and academic writing

“The emotional mess of ethnic nationalism, with its talk of chosen races and songs about rivers, has been swept aside by a simple social contract.”

Flaneur is a Berlin-based multidisciplinary magazine that profiles the cities of the world by choosing a single street and delving deep into its social and historical complexity. The publication has won numerous awards including Magazine of the Year from Stack Awards, and co-founder Ricarda Messner was named on the Forbes Europe “30 Under 30” list for media. Their Montreal issue includes a piece by Andrew Zadel exploring the the uneasy contradictions of Canadian identity and life on Bernard Street in Montreal’s Mile End. You can read that here.

“Our principles and protocols have been built, layer upon layer, by seeking solutions to unforeseen challenges.“

Dispatches is the official public outreach magazine of Doctors Without Borders Canada. The Spring 2018 issue features an article by Andrew Zadel about the project he managed in Iraq, providing medical care for families who were forced to flee the fighting in Mosul. The article examines how the organization’s core principle of neutrality was difficult to apply given that it was impossible to communicate with ISIS or move inside their territory. You can read that here.

Andrew holds a master’s degree (M.Sc.) in Economics for Development from the University of Oxford. His master’s thesis applied econometric models to census data following the Rwandan genocide, to determine whether the measurement of a change in sex ratios is a valid proxy for excess mortality due to conflict. You can download the thesis here. Andrew also holds a previous master’s degree (M.Phil.) in Social Anthropology, also from the University of Oxford. His first master’s thesis analyzed the sexual violence that occurred during the wars in Bosnia and Croatia, and demonstrated how the prevalence of rape and forced impregnation in those conflicts was rooted in a widespread public discourse about national identity and population growth.

Zadel has worked as a consultant for both the World Bank and the United Nations. The following is a select list of publications for which he is a co-author or contributor:

Finn, A., & Zadel, A. (2020). Monitoring COVID-19 Impacts on Households in Zambia.

World Bank (2020). Kenya: Systematic Country Diagnostic.

World Bank (2018). Angola Systematic Country Diagnostic: Creating Assets for the Poor.

Pablo Baraybar, J., Brasey, V., & Zadel, A. (2007). The need for a centralised and humanitarian-based approach to missing persons in Iraq: an example from Kosovo. International Journal of Human Rights, 11(3), 265-274.