Staff in African Studies and Anthropology 

At Birmingham you will be taught by staff who have first-hand experience of the continent - they have lived and taught in Africa, and continue to carry out research there.

Dr Morenikeji Asaaju

Dr Morenikeji Asaaju

Cadbury Postdoctoral Fellow in African Studies

I am a historian of Africa with particular thematic interest in gender, marriage, family, slavery, emancipation, and the slave trade. My interest also lies in understanding the colonial political and legal changes in twentieth century Africa. My doctoral thesis examined changes in gender and marital relations in colonial Abeokuta, south-western Nigeria.

Dr Marco Di Nunzio

Dr Marco Di Nunzio

Assistant Professor in Urban Anthropology.

Marginality, development, the politics of existence and the right to the city  

Dr Nathan Dobson

Dr Nathan Dobson

Teaching Fellow

I am a Social Anthropologist with a PhD from the University of California, Irvine. I taught Anthropology and African Studies at the University of Florida and the University of Birmingham. I have experience working on research projects on mobile money (financial inclusion), Islam in Africa and internet shutdowns (digital governance). My own research interests are in political anthropology, ...

Dr Leslie Fesenmyer

Dr Leslie Fesenmyer

Assistant Professor in Social Anthropology and African Studies

I am a social anthropologist whose research interests include transnational migration, kinship, belonging, and religion (especially Pentecostalism).I have pursued these interests in the United Kingdom and Kenya and in the context of migration between the two countries.  

Dr Juliet Gilbert

Dr Juliet Gilbert

Assistant Professor in Social Anthropology and African Studies

I am an anthropologist with a particular interest in youth studies, religion (especially Pentecostalism), insecure livelihoods, and aspects of popular culture (fashion, beauty pageants, mobile phones). My doctorate thesis focused on young women’s livelihoods in Calabar, southeastern Nigeria.

Dr Sarah Howard

Dr Sarah Howard

Research Fellow

I am a social anthropologist who has carried out long-term ethnographic research in Ethiopia on public service, labour, development and the everyday state.

Dr Jessica Johnson

Dr Jessica Johnson

Associate Professor in Social Anthropology and African Studies
Head of Department of African Studies and Anthropology

Social anthropology specialising in Southern Africa, anthropology of gender and law in Malawi

Professor Olukoya Ogen

Visiting Senior Research Fellow
Professor of History, Osun State University, Osogbo, Nigeria

Dr Anthony Pickles

Dr Anthony Pickles

Assistant Professor in Social Anthropology

I am a social anthropologist with interests in economy, politics, digital technology, societal transformation and the future. I have done research in Papua New Guinea, the UK and the USA. My published work is often about gambling, but also anthropological theory, corruption, spreadsheets, markets, money and even pockets. I am currently working on a project about political gamblers influence on ...

Dr Nathalie Raunet

Dr Nathalie Raunet

Assistant Professor

I am an interdisciplinary scholar in African Studies focusing on West African history, anthropology and politics. My research interests include belonging, citizenship, authoritarianism, transnationalism and borders. My work focuses more specifically on the making and unmaking of belonging and citizenship in the Ghana-Togo borderlands, cross-border voting and elections, and transnational ...

Honorary staff

Professor Dame Karin Barber

Professor Dame Karin Barber

Emeritus Professor of African Cultural Anthropology

Anthropology, popular culture, religion, and the verbal arts, both oral and written. Yoruba and Yoruba print culture.

Dr Maxim Bolt

Dr Maxim Bolt

Senior Honorary Research Fellow

Anthropology, labour, migration, borders, development and the social dynamics of money.

Dr Stewart Brown

Dr Stewart Brown

Honorary Research Fellow

African and Caribbean fiction and poetry

Dr Lynne Brydon

Dr Lynne Brydon

Senior Honorary Research Fellow

Gender, changing family structures, migration, development issues, historicised ethnography

Dr Rebecca Jones

Dr Rebecca Jones

Honorary Research Fellow

I am a scholar of Nigerian print, literary and popular cultures in the Yoruba and English languages, with an emphasis on archival research and on literary and popular texts. My research sits at the intersection between literary studies and cultural anthropology; I am interested in how literary print cultures, genres, readers and writers emerge and develop, while also keeping what texts themselves ...

Professor Tom McCaskie

Professor Tom McCaskie

Senior Research Fellow

History and culture of Asante and Africa; comparative history; history of ideas; historiography

Dr Katrien Pype

Dr Katrien Pype

Honorary Research Fellow

Anthropology, social and cultural contours of communication.

Dr Benedetta Rossi

Dr Benedetta Rossi

Senior Honorary Research Fellow

History and anthropology of twentieth-century West Africa, Hausa and Tuareg societies.