After completing a phd in geography at the University of Edinburgh (2014), and spending 5 years as a Lecturer at the Political Geography unity at the University of Zürich, I started working as a Lecturer in the Development Geography group at the University of Lund in 2020, where I direct, and teach within, the LUMID programme. 

My research focuses on the political economy of resource extraction and conservation that I understand to be at the core of uneven development dynamics. I situate my work within political ecology, and take an ethnographic approach to research. I am particularly interested in contexts where the state is considered weak or absent. Empirically I have worked mostly on gold mining and forest governance, as well as informal security provision in West Africa.

I am an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Environment Politics and Society, and member of the Comité de Rédaction of EchoGéo.

Past and ongoing projects include:

- "Fair gold? Institutionalising labour and environmental standards along the certified gold supply chain" (2021-2026) funded by FORMAS, together with Tongnoma Zongo at INSS Ouagadougou, Sylvie Capitant at Université I Sorbonne Paris, Leonardo Güiza-Suarez at Universidad del Rosario Bogotá, Gavin Hilson at University of Surrey. In collaboration with the Alliance for Responsible Mining, we seek to advance an understanding of "responsible mining" through cases of gold mining in Burkina Faso and Colombia.

- "Frontier settlements: Territories of artisan mining labour in Africa" (2020-2025) funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, together with Tim Raeymaekers at the Unviersity of Zürich, looking at the different ways that informal mining labour plays out in the expansion of global extravism through governance and urbanisation dynamics, with sites Burkina Faso, Zimbabwe and the DRC.

- "Security and fragile states: Spaces of vigilante legitimacy in Burkina Faso" (2017-2019) funded by the Unviersity of Zürich International Office, together with Zakaria Soré and Bouraima Zongo at the Sociology Department, Unviersity of Ouagadougou I Joseph Ki-Zerbo, looking at legitimation dynamics of non-state vigilante groups confronting top-down and "from below" approaches to security in the Sahel. 

Past publications (not on LUCRIS) include:

• Côte, Muriel (2019) "Politicising the will to adapt" in Dialogues in Human Geography.
• Côte, Muriel; Wartmann, Flurina M; Purves, Ross S (2018) "The trouble with forest" in Geographica Helvetica.
• Côte, Muriel; Gautier, Denis (2018) "Fuelwood territorialities" in Geographica Helvetica.
• Côte, Muriel; Korf, Benedikt (2018) "Making concessions" in World Development.
• Côte, Muriel (2016) "After the gold rush" Political Ecology Network (POLLEN) Blog.
• Côte, Muriel (2015) ‘Authochthony, democratisation and forest: The politics of choice in Burkina Faso’ RFGI Working Paper26. University of Illinois, IUCN, CODESRIA.
• Côte, M. (2013) 'What's in a right? The liberalisation of gold mining and decentralisation in Burkina Faso' LDPI Working Paper 25. The Hague: ISS, Land Deals Politics Initiative (aussi en français).
• Polack, Emily, Cotula, Lorenzo and Muriel Côte (2013) Accountability in Africa’s land rush: what role for legal empowerment? London: IIED/IDRC (aussi en français).
• Côte, Muriel and Andrea Nightingale (2012) "Resilience thinking meets social theory" in Progress in Human Geography.
• Côte, M. (2011) 'Résister à la nouvelle course pour la terre: Vers une « écologie politique» de la question de la terre au Sahel' in Ecologie et Politique