Workshop Bios
   
 

Organizers

Dorothy L. Hodgson is Professor and Graduate Director in the Department of Anthropology at Rutgers University. She is the Vice-President of the African Studies Association and has previously served as Chair of the Department of Anthropology, Director of the Rutgers’ Institute for Research on Women, and President of the Association for Feminist Anthropology. As a historical anthropologist, she has worked in Tanzania, East Africa, for almost thirty years on such topics as gender, ethnicity, cultural politics, colonialism, nationalism, modernity, the missionary encounter, transnational organizing, and the indigenous rights movement. She is the author of Being Maasai, Becoming Indigenous: Postcolonial Politics in a Neoliberal World (Indiana, 2011), The Church of Women: Gendered Encounters Between Maasai and Missionaries (Indiana, 2005), and Once Intrepid Warriors: Gender, Ethnicity and the Cultural Politics of Maasai Development (Indiana, 2001); and editor of The Gender, Culture and Power Reader (Oxford, in press), Gender and Culture at the Limit of Rights (Pennsylvania, 2011), Gendered Modernities: Ethnographic Perspectives (Palgrave, 2001) andRethinking Pastoralism in Africa: Gender, Culture and the Myth of the Patriarchal Pastoralist (James Currey, 2000); and co-editor of “Wicked” Women and the Reconfiguration of Gender in Africa (Heinemann, 2001).

Judith A. Byfield is Associate Professor of History at Cornell University where she teaches African and Caribbean History. She is the author of The Great Upheaval: Women, Taxes and Nationalist Politics in Nigeria, 1945 – 1951 (Ohio University Press, forthcoming). The Bluest Hands: A Social and Economic History of Women Indigo Dyers in Western Nigeria 1890-1940(Heinemann, 2002); co-editor, with Carolyn Brown, Timothy Parsons, Ahmad Sikainga, Africa and World War II (Cambridge, 2015); co-editor, with LaRay Denzer and Anthea Morrison, Gendering the African Diaspora: Women, Culture and Historical change in the Caribbean and Nigerian Hinterland (Indiana University Press, 2010); and editor of Cross Currents: Building Ridges Across American and Nigerian Studies (Book Builders, 2009). She is on the advisory board of Cambridge University Press – New Perspective in African History; Palimpsest: A Journal on Women, Gender and the Black International; the Journal of Women’s History and the Editorial Board of the Blacks in the Diaspora Series, Indiana University Press. Formally, she served on the advisory boards of: Journal of African History; Contours – A Journal of the African Diaspora; and Women Writing Africa. She is a former President of the African Studies Association (2011) and Chair of the Association of African Studies Programs. She has received numerous fellowships including: Institute for Advanced Study, National Humanities Center, National Endowment of the Humanities, Fulbright Senior Scholar, Rockefeller Humanities Fellowship – University of Michigan, and Andrew Mellon Fellowship – Dartmouth College.


Participants

Hakim Adi is Professor of the History of Africa and the African Diaspora at the University of Chichester, UK. Hakim has written widely on the history of Pan-Africanism and the African Diaspora, including three history books for children. He is the author of Pan-Africanism and Communism: The Communist International, Africa and the Diaspora, 1919-1939 (Africa World Press, 2013); West Africans in Britain 1900-60: Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Communism (Lawrence and Wishart, 1998); (with M. Sherwood) The 1945 Manchester Pan-African Congress Revisited (New Beacon, 1995) and Pan-African History: Political Figures from Africa and the Diaspora since 1787 (Routledge, 2003).

Cheikh Babou is an Associate Professor in the Department of History at the University of Pennsylvania. His research focuses on mystical Islam in West Africa and Senegal as well s the new African diaspora. Publication include Fighting the Greater Jihad: Amadu Bamba and the Founding of the Muridiyya of Senegal, 1853-1913 (Ohio University Press, 2007) as well as articles in  African Affairs,  Journal of African History,  International Journal of African Historical Studies,  Journal of Religion in Africa,  Africa Today and other scholarly journals in the United States and in France.

Chambi Chachage is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University where he focuses on African History. His research interests are diverse. They include: religion and elite formation in Africa and comparative histories of capitalism and militarism in Eastern and Southern Africa. He is the editor, together with Annar Cassam, of Africa’s Liberation: The Legacy of Nyerere. Apart from blogging at Udadisi: Rethinking in Action and Ufunuo: Revelation of Hope, he contributes to Pambazuka News and co-moderates Wanazuoni: Tanzania’s Intellectuals.

Benedict Carton is Robert T. Hawkes Professor of History at George Mason University. He studies the transnational dimensions of Southern African history. His publications include Blood from Your Children: The Colonial Origins of Generational Conflict in South Africa (University of Virginia Press, 2000) and Zulu Identities: Being Zulu Past and Present (Oxford University Press, 2009; co-editor and –author). His next book, with Robert Vinson, is called Shaka’s Progeny, A Transnational History: Americans and Zulus in the Arc of Racial Justice, 1820-2000. In 2012, Carton co-wrote a telenovella entitled Isibaya, meaning the “central cattle enclosure,” a metaphor for lineage power in Zulu society. Now a collaborative effort led by Zulu writers, Isibaya is a soap opera (dramatizing rural and urban cultures in “global” South Africa) on the MNET channel, showing five nights a week.

Siad Darwish is an Ph.D. candidate in Cultural Anthropology at Rutgers University. His research interests include political ecology, environmental history, gender, and ecology and religion. His dissertation focuses on the politics of water in North Africa.

François-Xavier Fauvelle is an Africanist historian and archaeologist. He is Senior Researcher at the CNRS, affiliated with the University of Toulouse, France. He was the head of the French Center for Ethiopian Studies in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and is now the director of TRACES in Toulouse, one of the leading international laboratories in archaeology. His research focuses on the history and archeology of ancient and medieval Africa. His geographical focus is on southern Africa, the Horn of Africa, Morocco (where he leads a French-Morrocan program of excavations at Sijilmâsa) and West Africa. He is the author or editor of 15 books and the author of around a hundred academic articles. His most recent book is (in French) The Golden Rhinoceros: History of the African Middle Ages (Paris: 2013), which received the Grand Prix du Livre d’histoire (the main French prize for academic history books) in 2013.

Leo Garofalo is an Associate Professor of History at Connecticut College. His research draws attention to the central roles of Native Andeans and Afro-Peruvians in colonial cities. Currently he is exploring the Afro-Iberian roots of Andean withcracft and the Atlantic and European routes of the West African diaspora in the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Andes. Professor Garofalo co-edited with Kathryn Joy McKnight, Afro-Latino Voices: Narratives from the Early-Modern Ibero-Atlantic World, 1550-1812, (2009) ; and with Erin O'Connor Documenting Latin America: Gender, Race, and Empire, vol. I (New York: , 2010). He is also editor of Documenting Latin America: Gender, Documenting Latin America Vol 1Race, and Nation, vol. II (New York: Pearson, 2010).

Heidi Østbø Haugen is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology and Human Geography, University of Oslo. She has done research on migration and trade between West Africa and China since 2003. Between 2009 and 2014, she has carried out a total of 15 months of fieldwork among Africans living in Guangzhou, South China, following several persons over a five-year period. She was a visiting scholar at Sun Yat-sen University in 2014 and has studied Chinese at Beijing Normal University. Prior to starting her PhD, she worked at the World Food Programme’s West Africa Bureau.

Paul Lovejoy holder of the Canada Research Chair in African Diaspora History is Distinguished Research Professor of History at York University, Canada. He has published over thirty books and one hundred articles and chapters on African social and economic history and African diasporic history. Along with dozens of colleagues, he is creating a database of biographical information on all enslaved Africans in the Americans. His publications include : co-edited with David Trotman, Trans-Atlantic demensions of ethnicity in the African diaspora (Continuun, 2003) ; Transformations in Slavery : A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge University Press, 2000 ; 2 nd Edition) ; with Jan Hogendorn, Slow Death for Slavery : The Course of Abolition in Northern Nigeria, 1897 – 1936 (Cambridge University Press, 1993) ; Salt in the Desert Sun : A History of Salt Production and Trade in the Central Sudan (Cambridge University Press, 1986).

Dillon Mahoney is an urban anthropologist specializing in globalization, informal economies, and digital technology in East Africa. He has conducted more than two years of fieldwork conducted during seven trips to Kenya since 2001. Contributing to the study of globalization and development as well as anthropology of media, art, and communication, his research explores the emergent strategies of Kenyan traders, especially those working in the shadow of the country’s international tourism industry. His focus is on the lived experiences of ups and downs, risk, precariousness, and the importance of the sense of trust and transparency in long-distance connections.

Keiso Matashane-Marite is Social Affairs Officer for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, in Addis Ababa Ethiopia, at the African Centre for Gender. Her background is in Sociology and Public Administration, Public Health and Gender and Development. She joined ECA in 2007 after working for a regional women’s rights organization, Women and Law in Southern Africa Research and Education Trust in Lesotho. Since 1993, she has contributed to research, advocacy, training and debates on women’s legal rights, gender perspectives of HIV and AIDS, Governance and Elections in Africa.

Ann McDougall is Professor of History at University of Alberta. Her research interests include the economic, social, and political history of the Sahara and slavery in French and North-West Africa. Her publications include : Engaging with a Legacy: Nehemia Levtzion (1935 – 2003) Routledge, UK; 2012) ;  “ ‘To Marry One’s Slave is as easy as eating a meal’: the dynamics of carnal relations in Saharan Slavery” in Gwyn Campbell (Ed)., Sexuality and Slavery: the dynamics of carnal relations” (Ohio University Press, 2012) ; “On Being Saharan”. In James McDougall & Judith Scheele (Eds). Saharan Frontiers: Space and Mobility in North West Africa. (Indiana University Press, 2011).

Renu Modi is a faculty member in the Centre for African Studies at the University of Mumbai. Her research areas include international migration, political economy international development, diasporas and India-Africa relations. Her publications include : ‘Rethinking Development : Trade Liberalisation versus Self Reliance for Food Security in the Global South, Area Studies : A Journal of International Studies and Analysis, Vol. 8, Jan-Jun 2014 ; ‘Food Security and Economic Partnership Agreements between Africa and the European Union,’ African Currents, Vol. 35, no. 1 & 2, 2014. Her books include:
Agricultural Development and Food Security in Africa: The Impact of Chinese, Indian and Brazilian Investments (Co-ed with Fantu Cheru), Zed Books, London (August 2013 ); South-South Cooperation: Africa on the Centre Stage (ed), Palgrave Macmillan, United Kingdom (August 2011); and Beyond Relocation: The Imperative for Sustainable Resettlement (ed), Sage Publications, New Delhi (August 2009).

Obadias Ndaba is a columnist at Libre Afrique and blogs at The Huffington Post (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/obadias-ndaba/). He writes on African affairs, development and economy. His articles and views have appeared in The Standard, AllAfrica, Voice of America, The African Executive, and The Africa Review, among other publications. He has worked in micro-finance and commercial banking in Rwanda, and in nonprofit in Kenya and the United States. Obadias holds a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Kigali Independent University, a certificate in Nonprofit Financial Stewardship from Kennedy School of Government and an Executive Master in Development Policies and Practices from The Graduate Institute Geneva. He speaks Kinyarwanda, Swahili, French and English, and lives in New York City.

Onookome Okome is a faculty member in the Department of English and Film Studies, University of Alberta. He has a special interest in postcolonial literature in general and African literature and literary/cultural productions in particular. His interest in African literature includes popular expressions produced on the continent, especially in Anglophone Africa. Okome’s publications include : "Nollywood and Its Critics: the Anxiety of the Local." Viewing African Cinema: FESPACO Art Films and the Nollywood Video Revolution. Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2010 ; ‘Reading the Popular: Onitsha market Literature and the Practice of Everyday Life." Teaching the African Novel. Chicago: The Modern language Association of America, 2009 ; and co-editor (with Lahouicne Ouzgane) Special Issue on Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart-“Encounters and Engagements with Things Fall Apart.” Interventions: The International Journal of Postcolonial Studies, volume 11, issue 2, 2009.

Frank Trey Procter, an Associate Professor in the Department of History, Denison College, writes on the lived experience of slaves of African descent and master-slave relations in Spanish America. His first book, ‘Notions of Liberty’ : Slavery, Culture, and Power in Colonial Mexico, 1640 – 1769 explores master/slave relations in Mexico. He has published articles in Hispanic American Historical Review and The Americas and chapters in the edited volumes Black Mexico (University of New Mexico, 2009).

Masimba Tafirenyika is the editor-in-chief of the United Nations’ Africa Renewal magazine. He has worked for the United Nations in several African countries including Liberia, Sierra Leone and South Africa, and visited many others. Prior to joining the United Nations, he worked in his native country Zimbabwe as a journalist writing extensively on African economic and political issues for different publications in Africa and in Europe. He holds a Bachelor Honors degree in Economics from the University of Zimbabwe and a Masters degree in International Affairs from Columbia University in New York.

Victoria L. Rovine is Associate Professor of Art History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her book, Bogolan: Shaping Culture through Cloth in Contemporary Mali (Indiana University Press, 2008), examined the recent transformations of a Malian textile. Her second book, African Fashion, Global Style: Histories, Innovations, and Ideas You Can Wear (Indiana University Press, 2015), explores the innovations of designers from Africa, past and present, as well as Africa’s presence in the Western fashion imaginary. Rovine is also a Research Associate with the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre (VIAD) at the University of Johannesburg.

Robert Trent Vinson the Frances L. and Edwin L. Cummings Associate Professor of History and Africana Studies, at the College of William and Mary. His teaches and writes on Ancient and Modern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean and the United States. He is especially interested in cultural and intellectual histories, imperialism and colonialism. His publications include The Americans are Coming!: The Dream of African American Liberation in Segregationist South Africa (Ohio University Press, 2012) and Before Mandela, Like A King: The Prophetic Politics of Chief Albert Luthuli (Athens, Ohio University Press, Forthcoming).

 

 
 
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