I am an anthropologist whose interdisciplinary work spans interests in Africa and its diasporas; museums; material culture and art practices; the afterlives of slavery and colonialism; and approaches to contemporary forms of exploitation, forced labour and human rights in different African countries. I have experience in migration and diaspora, heritage, music, and other arts-based, creative approaches to knowledge-making and engagement. I am keen to pursue a research agenda and curatorial and museum practice that centre community-engaged, collaborative, antiracist, and inclusive practice.

Before joining UBC, I have most recently worked at the University of Oxford, based at the Pitt Rivers Museum. As part of the project, “Reconnecting Objects”, funded by the VW Stiftung, I collaborated with partners in Oxford (UK), Cape Town (South Africa), Dakar (Senegal), Dschang (Cameroon) and Berlin (Germany). This project, among other things, explored colonial collections—as well as art practices—and the possibilities of mobilising African and diasporic communities in rethinking these collections.

I hold degrees in Sociology and Anthropology from the University of Zimbabwe, Monash University (Australia) and SOAS, University of London. My MPhil research in Johannesburg investigated the intersections of identity and consumption that shaped mobilities, aspirations and experiences of South Africa for young Zimbabweans. My doctoral work in London focused on the experiences of music and belonging amongst Zimbabweans, as part of the genealogy of African and Black expressive culture in the UK. After I completed my PhD, I went on to join the Antislavery Knowledge Network at the University of Liverpool, studying how creative, art and heritage-based community-led approaches can be utilised in confronting contemporary forms of exploitation. This work was through collaboration at different stages with partners and communities in Mali, Niger, Ghana, Uganda, Kenya, Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

I continue to learn from indigenous, Black and other alternate-seeking ways of being-held and being-in the world and sharing the planet, and my work seeks to trace and reveal some of these relational ways of sense- and world-making. I am happy to think and work with others across forms and disciplines.