Dr Jessica Johnson BA (Hons), MPhil, PhD (Cantab)

• BA (Hons), Archaeology and Anthropology (Cambridge)
• MPhil, Social Anthropological Research (Cambridge)
• PhD, Social Anthropology (Cambridge)
• PGCHE, Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (Birmingham)

I completed my PhD in 2013 at the University of Cambridge, where I also studied for my BA and MPhil. I worked for three years as a Research Fellow at Peterhouse College, Cambridge, before joining DASA as a Lecturer in 2016. In 2018, I completed the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education (PGCHE) and became a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

• Thinking Anthropologically (core module for first-year undergraduates)
• Social Life of the Economy (optional module for second- and third-year undergraduates and Masters students)
• Kinship, Gender and Sexuality (optional module for second and third year undergraduates)
• Contemporary Gender Issues in Africa (Masters module)
• Studying Societies (anthropology) (core module for first-year undergraduates)
• Anthropology and Its Regions (core module for first-year undergraduates)
• Research Skills and Methods in African Studies (core module for postgraduate students)

I welcome enquiries from students interested in gender relations, development, and legal anthropology.

Find out more - our PhD African Studies  page has information about doctoral research at the University of Birmingham.

I have conducted more than two years’ fieldwork in Malawi, 2009-10 and 2015. My doctoral work concerned gender relations and marital dispute resolution in a matrilineal context. My more recent research focuses on the workings of a rural Magistrates’ court. 

• Gibbs Travelling Research Fellow, Newnham College, Cambridge, 2014-15
• I am an editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy