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Nine African scholars awarded Virtual Research Fellowship with Leeds

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Nine African scholars awarded Virtual Research Fellowship with Leeds
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The Leeds University Centre for African Studies has partnered with the Leeds Arts and Humanities Research Institute to launch a new virtual research fellowship scheme. Under the theme "African Knowledges for Global Challenges", the scheme enables scholar based on the African continent to collaborate with a Leeds-based academic on a well-defined project. As LUCAS director, Professor Adriaan van Klinken, comments:

This fellowship scheme feeds into the University’s strategy and vision of internationalisation, and it strengthens the University’s engagement with the African continent. Virtual fellowships are a carbon-footprint friendly way of developing collaborative research partnerships between African-based scholars and colleagues at Leeds. The theme of the Fellowship scheme, 'African Knowledges for Global Challenges', addresses ongoing debates about decolonisation and contributes to the articulation of African-centred knowledges about the critical questions of our time.

Through a competitive selection process, nine fellowships have been awarded for the year 2021, to scholars based in six countries across the African continent. The successful fellows, and their projects, are:

  • Dr Sandra Bhatasara (University of Zimbabwe): “Local ecological knowledge in responding to climate change: Localizing SGD 13 in the Zimbabwean context” (working with Prof David Higgins).
  • Dr Michael Chasukwa (University of Malawi): “African Knowledges of Climate Change Adaptation – A critical examination of power play between international and local actors in Climate Change Policy Making and Implementation” (working with Dr Emma-Louise Anderson).
  • Dr Stephen Kapinde (Pwani University, Kenya): “Queer Mission in an Anti-Queer Nation’: Emerging African Queer Religious Knowledge from the Bride of the Lamb Ministries International Church in Kenya" (working with Prof. Adriaan van Klinken).
  • Dr Matthew Michael (Nasarawa State University, Nigeria): “When Religion is all They Have Left: Religious Ideologies, New Spiritualities and Survival in a Refugee Camp During COVID-19 in Northern Nigeria” (working with Dr Abel Ugba).
  • Dr Simon Mutebi (University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania): “Indigenous Healing and Medicinal Practices in Response to the COVID-19 Outbreak in Tanzania" (working with Dr Benjamin Kirby).
  • Dr Gibson Ncube (University of Zimbabwe): "Queer, Muslim and African: Abdellah Taïa’s literary work as an ethnography of the conflict between religion and non-normative sexuality in Africa" (working with Prof. Adriaan van Klinken).
  • Dr Megan Robertson (University of the Western Cape, South Africa): "Project title: Performing Sex and the Sacred: An exploration of religion in the lived experiences and stage performances of queer artists of colour in South Africa" (working with Prof. Adriaan van Klinken).
  • Dr Scott Timcke (University of Johannesburg): “How can African Knowledges Aid in the Analysis of Contemporary FinTech in Africa?” (working with Dr Chris Paterson and Dr Jorg Wiegratz).
  • Dr Evelyn Urama (Alex Ekwueme Federal University, Nigeria): “Injustice Begets Insecurity: African Writers’ Exposition of Oppression, Brutality and Violent Killings” (working with Dr Brendon Nicholls).