SRU Africa People
Anne Haour
- Anne HaourProfessor in the Arts and Archaeology of Africa
- Emaila.haour@uea.ac.uk
- Tel0044 (0)1603 591006
- Academic background BA (1995), Oxford; MA (1998), University College London; DPhil (2002), Oxford; British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow 2002-2005 Hertford College, Oxford; Lecturer in Archaeology 2006-2007, University of Newcastle
- General Research Interests Archaeology, Africa, Indian Ocean, material culture, African archaeology, ceramic analysis, construction of value, coastlines, trade/traders, medieval empires, cowries.
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Gréine Jordan
- Gréine JordanPhD Candidate
- EmailG.Jordan@uea.ac.uk
- Region of Interest Oceania/Africa
- Research Interests Missionaries, Education, children, history of collections, museums, propaganda, The British Empire, colonialism, nationalism, religion, Imagination, Adventure writing, Maritime history
- PhD Thesis Voyagers All? The Historic Role of Missionary Societies in Shaping Children’s Understandings of Britain’s Place in The World
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Amy King
- Amy KingResearch Student
- EmailAmelia.King@uea.ac.uk
- Region of Interest Africa
- Research Interests The art of Central Africa; colonial histories of the DR Congo; histories of Christianity; ethnography, collecting and early photographic practices; missionary projects in Central Africa, materiality and exchange; museum collections and archives
- PhD Thesis Collecting the Congo: Histories of exchange in Baptist Missions c.1885 – 1915
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John Mack
- John MackProfessor of World Art Studies
- Emailjohn.mack@uea.ac.uk
- Tel0044 (0)1603 592463
- Academic Background BA (1971) Social Anthropology; MA The History of Ideas, both University of Sussex (1972); D.Phil Merton College University Oxford (1975); Research Assistant, Assistant Keeper, Keeper Department of Ethnography British Museum (1976-2004); Professor of World Art Studies, University of East Anglia (2004-present)
- General Research Interests African arts and cultures (especially East Africa and the western Indian Ocean islands, the Congo area, West African coastal cultures), thematic approaches to art (eg to memory, miniaturisation, funerary arts, maritime cultures, the contemporary), museum and heritage collections and practice.
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Sonja Magnavita
- Sonja MagnavitaResearch Associate - African Archaeology
- Academic background PhD Goethe Universitat Frankfurt
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Claire Mcgee
- Claire McgeeResearch Student
- Emailc.mcgee@uea.ac.uk
- Region of Interest Africa
- Research Interests The arts and anthropology of Africa; subcultural studies, material culture studies; costuming and performance
- PhD thesis An Exploration of the Marok Subculture of Botswana (working title)
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Abigail Moffett
- Abigail MoffettNewton International Fellow
- EmailAbigail.Moffett@uea.ac.uk
- Project Commodity circulation, consumption patterns and early global trade networks: a study of the cowrie shell in African archaeological contexts
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Sam Nixon
- Sam NixonResearch Associate - African Archaeology
- Emailsam.nixon@uea.ac.uk
- Tel0044(0)1603 597502
- Academic background BA History of Art (1998) UCL; MA Archaeology (2002) UCL; PhD Archaeology (2008) UCL
- Research Interests Long-distance exchange networks and ‘culture contact’ in the pre-modern world; trading societies and trading networks; medieval West Africa and the Sahara; trans-Saharan trade and early West African gold trade; early African architecture.
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Bolaji Owoseni
- Bolaji OwoseniResearch Student
- Emailb.owoseni@uea.ac.uk
- Region of Interest Africa
- Research Interest West African Archeology, Settlement studies, Ethno archaeology, Community engagement, Culture and development
- PhD thesis Archeology of Okesuna area of the Ilorin region, Kwara State, North Central, Nigeria’
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Chris Wingfield
- Chris WingfieldSenior Lecturer in the Arts of Africa
- EmailChris.Wingfield@uea.ac.uk
- Tel0044 (0)1603 593756
- Academic Background BA Archaeology & Anthropology (2000); MPhil Material Anthropology & Museum Ethnography (2002), University of Oxford; PhD (2012), University of Birmingham. Curator, Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery (2004-2006); Researcher, Pitt Rivers Museum (2006-2009); Associate Lecturer, Open University (2009-2013); Senior Curator, Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Cambridge (2012-2018).
- General Research Interests Museum collections, Art and material culture, Southern Africa, Missionary Heritage
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Selected African objects in the Sainsbury Centre
Mask. West Africa, Ivory Coast or Liberia: We. Late 19th/early 20th century. h. 21.6 cm. UEA 211
Reliquary head. Central Africa, Gabon: Fang. Late 19th/early 20th century. h 26.0 cm. UEA 240
SRU Africa News & Events
Autumn visiting fellow
We are delighted to welcome back to the SRU our Autumn visiting fellow - Dr Vicky Van Bockhaven.
Vicky holds MA’s in Social and Cultural Anthropology (Catholic University of Leuven) and World Art History (University of East Anglia, UGent), and earned her PhD in 2014 from the Sainsbury Research Unit at the University of East Anglia. Her research methodology is interdisciplinary combining expertise in the domains of material culture studies, world art history, historical anthropology, and ethno-history.
Prior to her academic career, Dr Van Bockhaven gained multiple years of experience as a researcher and curator at the Royal Museum for Central Africa (Tervuren) and the MAS (Museum aan de Stroom, Antwerp). She curated the semi-permanent exhibition “Display of Power” at the MAS, and the exhibition “Headdresses from Central Africa” at the RMCA.
She currently works as a postdoctoral researcher at the UGent Department of African Languages and Cultures on the BRAIN-project CongoConnect since 2015, which builds on her doctoral research on Leopard men in Eastern Congo, and will continue to work there as an assistant professor for the next 5 years.
Whilst at the SRU Dr Van Bockhaven will be working on a monograph Revisting Rebellion: collective therapies in the political history of Northeast Congo and South Sudan (ca. 1850-today). The purpose is to unveil the role of initiation societies giving access to magico-medicinal substances and charms to improve well-being, to heal social and physical ills, and to attack enemies. These were catalysts of change in political history, often appearing as insurgencies, and form a potent domain for the study of African agency under colonial rule.The study of their history –including their colonial recasting as irrational and subversive secret societies- helps to shed light on recent rebellions and ritually-empowered militias, with which they share similarities.
Vicky will be with us until the end of this term and is based up on the mezzanine.
Re-collecting the Missionary Road