Christine Makuve

Department of African Studies and Anthropology
Doctoral researcher

PhD title: Exploring identity in the lives of Second-Generation immigrant British Zimbabwean Women: Navigating and negotiating gender, womanhood, and feminism

SupervisorDr Jessica Johnson and Professor Insa Nolte
PhD African Studies and Anthropology

Qualifications

  • BA Leadership and Management, Northumbria University;
  • MSc Hospitality and Tourism Management, Sheffield Hallam University;
  • PGDip Educational Leadership, University of Edinburgh;
  • PGCE Secondary Teaching (with QTS) Leeds Beckett University;
  • NPQSENDCO 

Biography

I am a PhD researcher in African Studies and Anthropology at the University of Birmingham. My work explores gender and identity in the lives of second-generation immigrant British Zimbabwean women. Drawing on decolonial, postcolonial, and Afrofeminist approaches - including the use of hunhu (ubuntu) and coloniality as ontological and epistemological frameworks - my research uses intergenerational framing as lenses through which to explore the lives of women in diaspora. Professionally, I have extensive experience in education (I'm a secondary teacher, SENDCO, and school Senior Leader); and social inclusion (management within LEAs/LAs). Personally, I am also a 1st generation migrant to the UK, having migrated to the UK from Zimbabwe in 1998.

Research

My research is a postcolonial, decolonial, and Afrofeminist examination of the conceptualisation and construction of gendered identities in the lives of second-generation immigrant British Zimbabwean women in the UK.  The research employs a comparative, multi‑sited, intergenerational l ethnographic design to examine gendered identity in the lives of these women, comparing their experiences to those of similarly aged female relatives who were born and raised in Zimbabwe, whilst also seeking the perspectives of their mothers and grandmothers.  
 
The research will also be underpinned by transnationalism, in that it juxtapositions the Zimbabwean diaspora community against the geographically situated Zimbabwean context in order to gain insights into the ways in which gender identity may be influenced by migration. The multi-sited nature of the methodological design will enable the exploration of transnational family ties, and intersections and fractures relating to ideas about womanhood in Zimbabwe and the UK.