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
Ana Luísa is a researcher at the Centre for African and Development Studies (CEsA/ISEG - Universidade de Lisboa), and an Assistant Professor at Forward College. She holds a PhD in Development Studies from ISEG. Ana is both a development researcher and practitioner, with experience in the design and management of international development cooperation projects and programs. In 2021, she co-founded Oficina Global, a research-to-action initiative
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
Renata did her BA in International Relations at Federal University of Uberlândia (Brazil) and her MA in Development and International Cooperation at ISEG-Lisbon School of Economics and Management. She has been working with different development cooperation topics from a research-to-action perspective, mostly in close collaboration with civil society organisations
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)
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Anselmo Matusse, former AfDevLives postdoctoral fellow
We invite applications for an intensive ten-day workshop in Moshi, Tanzania focused on sound-based qualitative approaches to scholarly, practical, and artistic research. Selected candidates will join an existing team of social scientists who study the afterlives of development interventions and (de)industrialization. The workshop is built around an experimental training connecting qualitative and creative research, in which we will employ sound-based methods to invite new ways of experiencing urban places and of bringing complex, contested, or hidden stories to life.
How to apply? Applicants should submit their complete CV and a letter of motivation that outlines their academic and professional trajectory and key interests, explaining why they are interested in the workshop and what they expect to gain from it. Applications to be submitted by 15 May 2025.
Joana invited us to walk and listen to places, to their temporal layers and ingrained entanglements. The workshop concentrated on walking and listening as forms of place-based research and practice that allowed us to engage with concrete sites and to read traces of multiple, often conflicting, temporal layers engraved in them.
The workshop took place on the 26-28th of February around Lisbon and @ISCTE
* Part of the AfDevLives Creative Research Methodologies Series.
On the 23rd of April 2024 we hosted another AfDevLives creative research methodologies session, dedicated to the photovoice research method. It was 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 shared their work using participatory photography in an effort to re-frame the narrative of a contested low-income neighbourhood in Lagos, Nigeria.
* Part of the AfDevLives Creative Research Methodologies Series.
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.
* Part of the AfDevLives Creative Research Methodologies Series.
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”.
The open lecture on 4th December 2023 - was titled: “Curating as engaging with extreme sites: the ex-Soviet monuments by the Baltic.”
Followed by the second part, a workshop, on “On the Nomadic Research at the Fringes Group´s Methods: fieldwork, visual essay and arts-based research.”
* Part of the AfDevLives Creative Research Methodologies Series.
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
