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Photo by Marie-Aude Fouéré, Tanzania, 2020
Yonatan is a social anthropologist studying international development, family dynamics, well-being, and religion in East Africa. Alongside his work on Project AfDevLives, he is deputy PI on Swiss National Science Foundation Sinergia project called FamilEA: Remaking of the Family in East Africa (Project n° CRSll5_213547/1, 2023-2027)
Carla completed her PhD in anthropology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in France. Her thesis focused on Pentecostalism, mobilities, temporalities and religious place-making in rural Benin. She also worked on memories of the Atlantic slave trade, as well as on notions of the good life. As a member of Project AfDevLives, she develops a case study in the district of Chokwè, in rural southern Mozambique
Janine is a cultural anthropologist who has spent over a decade in Northern Tanzania engaged in development work and scholarly research. She completed her PhD in Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, where her work shed light on the nuanced ways in which gender, sexuality, and secrecy intersect in the Kilimanjaro region. Currently, as part of the AfDevLives project, she continues her research in the Kilimanjaro region of Tanzania
Ngure is a Kenyan citizen with a bachelor's degree in community development and a Master of Arts degree in sociology both from Moi University Eldoret. His research interests, from his master’s thesis and two publications, have greatly focused on objectivity and reality as subjectively lived and experienced
Berenike did her BA in Anthropology and MA in African Studies at the University of Leipzig, Germany. For her MA thesis, she conducted field research on the naming of daladala stops in Zanzibar, Tanzania. Her interests include Swahili studies, posthumanism as well as queer-feminist and postcolonial studies. For her PhD research within Project AfDevLives she develops a case study in Lindi, southern Tanzania
Keren is an architectural researcher and curator. Her practice is situated at the intersection of the built environment, archives, exhibitions, and politics – in various interactive formats. She’s previously worked for museums, universities, and non-profit organisations. Working on various projects that investigate multi-narrative histories through the use of 3D scanning
Marta is a political scientist with a master’s (2010) and a PhD (2017) in African Studies. Her research focuses in state-building processes and state-society relations, justice and legal pluralism in the post-colonial period, with a specific expertise in Mozambique. Since 2010 she has been part of various research projects at CEI (Center for International Studies)
Marie-Aude Fouéré, EHESS – École des hautes études en sciences sociales (France)
Manya Kagan, University of Pennsylvania (USA)
Eunice Kamaara, Moi University (Kenya)
Lena Kroeker, Bayreuth University (Germany)
Angela Kronenburg García, UCLouvain (Belgium)
Eric Masese, Moi University (Kenya)
Claire Médard, IRD – Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (France) and Moi University (Kenya)
George Mutalemwa, St. Augustine University (Tanzania)
Orlando Nipassa, Eduardo Mondlane University (Mozambique)
Manuel João Ramos, Iscte – University Institute of Lisbon (Portugal)
This Tuesday, 23rd of April, at 11:30, we will host another AfDevLives creative research methodologies session, dedicated to the photovoice research method. It will be facilitated by Nura Ali, a doctoral student at the Development Planning Unit at University College London, and Nosazemen Agbontaen, a filmmaker, photographer, writer and producer. In their lecture "Photography as Method", Nura and Nosa will share their work using participatory photography in an effort to re-frame the narrative of a contested low-income neighbourhood in Lagos, Nigeria. Click on the poster for the zoom link!
The second session of the creative research methodologies led by the architect and photographer, Gili Merin. In her lecture and workshop she invited us to learn about her ongoing exploration of the history of urban photography, visual travelogues and photo essays in order to formulate a critique of the ways images have been produced and consumed over the last century. Under the title Photography Against the Grain: Observation, Engagement and Documentation the lecture also included an overview of Gili’s photographic projects that offer tools for critical observation, engagement and documentation of the built landscape. This event took place on the 22nd and 23rd of February 2024.
The first session of the creative research methodologies event series took place on the 4th and 5th of December. The researcher, curator and editor Inês Moreira invited us to join her methodological endeavour under the theme “Curating, Extreme Sites and Non-Beloved Heritage”. First part: Open lecture, on 4th December 2023 - titled: “Curating as engaging with extreme sites: the ex-Soviet monuments by the Baltic.” Second part: Workshop, on 5th December 2023, “On the Nomadic Research at the Fringes Group´s Methods: fieldwork, visual essay and arts-based research.”
A group photo from the recent ECRIS July 2023. The collective qualitative research method known as ECRIS, pioneered by development anthropologists Jeanne Pierre Olivier de Sardan (French) and Thomas Bierschenk (German). This method encourages debate across fields and competences, turning interpretative differences into valuable learning opportunities and especially geared towards the unpacking of the complexities associated with development projects (REFs). In mid-2023, in the context of ERC Starting Grant AfDevLives in Portugal and in collaboration with Moi University in Kenya and the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD) and French Institute for Research in Africa (IFRA) in France, we applied this approach to a the study of remains of a Finnish-Kenyan water-infrastructure collaboration called Kefinco, which was implemented in western Kenya from the early 1980s to the mid-1990s.
From August 21 to 25, 2023, we organised a Thematic Seminar titled "Beyond the Official Limits of Development Projects" in partnership with the Department of Sociology at Eduardo Mondlane University in Mozambique. The objectives of the seminar were to strengthen the relationship with our partner, the Department of Sociology, equip students with theoretical and methodological tools to examine the afterlives of development projects in the country, and ultimately build a community around the theme. Approximately 30 members participated in the seminar, many of whom were Ph.D. students in Development and Society from the Department of Sociology and other doctoral candidates interested in the development theme from various departments at UEM.
Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Research Council Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.
afdevlives@iscte-iul.pt
