Centre of African Studies Research Associates
Research Associates of CAS are long-term collaborators in Centre activities pursuing common programmes of research or other activities with Centre Members. They are granted certain staff privileges at SOAS which are recognised at other London colleges. Research associateship is granted for two years in the first instance.
Dr Augustus Casely-Hayford
Gus Casely-Hayford is a curator and art historian. He is the former Executive Director of Arts Strategy for Arts Council England. He was previously director of inIVA (Institute of International Visual Art), a London-based arts organization with a particular emphasis on international practice, which collaborates with partner venues throughout the UK and worldwide. Prior to this he was director of Africa 05, the largest African arts season ever hosted in Britain. He has worked for television and radio and was the presenter of the BBC 'Lost Kingdoms of Africa' series.
gus.casely-hayford[at]soas.ac.uk
Elsbeth Court, SOAS International Foundation Courses and English Language Studies
Elsbeth Court is a specialist in art education and African art focusing on eastern Africa and contemporary practices.
For many years, she has been the subject lecturer in World Art: Africa at SOAS IFCELS and, also, a sessional lecturer on the joint British Museum-Birkbeck College course World Art & Artefacts. Court, who has lived and worked in Ghana, Tanzania and Kenya (the latter for 15 years), continues her research on the Akamba carving movement (including an exhibition in Nairobi, 2010), the Kuona Arts Centre and African modernities in and out of Africa. Recent published articles/chapters/reviews concern artists and institutions in Ghana, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and the transnational Triangle Arts Trust.
Elsbeth drafted a
Bibliography for Art Education in Kenya, East Africa. (pdf; 470kb)
.
Dr Alessandra Giuffrida
Alessandra Giuffrida is an anthropologist. Her research focuses on structural aspects of social and spatial mobility, networks, aid-induced migration and sedentarisation of Berberophone pastoralists and refugees with particular emphasis on Malian Tuareg. In addition to her research in the Region of Timbuktu she has undertaken research in Darfour (Sudan) and the Draa Valley in Southern Morocco. She has a research affiliation to CHSIM at the Ecoles des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris), and is co-supervising a PhD based on research in Mali at the Department of International Development, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford. She collaborates with Al Jazeera English as an expert in Mali and the Tuareg. A list of her publications and media work can be found in www.academia.edu.
giuffrida.alessandra[at]gmail.com
Murray Last, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, UCL
Professor Murray Last (Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, UCL). Professor Last's current research programme largely centres around publishing the various materials he and his various Nigerian colleagues have collected on health and social issues in contemporary Kano over the last decade. But the major task is to write up the ethnographic data he has collected over the last thirty years on one large compound of Maguzawa (non-Muslim Hausa) (they have subsequently converted to Islam) in southern Katsina. Meanwhile there is also a work of filial piety to do - putting M G Smith's 1000-page typescripts of Sokoto history onto disk and then into print (funding has been promised). But there are several other projects in mind, such as publishing obscure, short but key documents written in arabic in the 19th century jihadi history and contemporary northern Nigerian society. Professor Last expects to continue visiting northern Nigeria at least once a year.
m.last[at]ucl.ac.uk
Dr Roy Love
Dr Love is currently an independent researcher and consultant with long-term interest in Ethiopia and Eritrea. He previously lectured in economics at universities of Botswana, Lesotho and Addis Ababa.
He is conducting a research on the "Economic roots of conflict in the Horn of Africa", for a book which will bring together the interconnectedness of the economic roots of conflict across the Horn, examining how the nature of conflict in the region in the 21st century has been shaped by overlapping domestic and international economic drivers at certain key periods between the late 19th century and the present, with continuing implications for the resolution of contemporary conflict and its amelioration and prevention.
rl18[at]soas.ac.uk
Dr Barbara Heinzen, Senior Research Associate
A consultant in long range scenario planning for business and the public domain. She is particularly interested in the role of 'soft infrastructure' in society: e.g. financial institutions, political structures, health and education. She is also working on the social and economic implications of HIV/AIDS as well as the invention of new social and economic systems that support the natural environment.
barbara[at]barbaraheinzen.com; www.barbaraheinzen.com
Dr Trevor Robinson
Dr Trevor Robinson founded his own independent consultancy practice to do 'leading edge' work on institution building, and in particular on public service development and governance; the objective is to work with senior officials and politicians to make worthwhile improvements in delivery of services and formulation of policy. He has worked for large, medium and small consultancies, and in the UK administrative Civil Service. He is an Honorary Research Associate at the Centre; and he is co-convenor of its Africa Business Group, of which he has been a member for some 20 years.
John Ryle
Chair of the The Rift Valley Institute, a research and training organization working in Easterm Africa, and Editor for Anthropology and Africa at the Times Literary Supplement. He is the author of numerous reports on regional issues including human rights, famine relief and conflict resolution, and a popular ethnography of the Agar Dinka of South Sudan.
ryle[at]bard.edu; www.riftvalley.net
Mr Kaye Whiteman
Has been Editor, then Editor-in-Chief of the weekly magazine West Africa since 1982. He recently edited a book of extracts from the magazine, West Africa Over 75 Years, and has been researching its history. He is also currently planning a book on France's relations with Africa over the past thirty years.
