Executive Management Committe

Keith is a Professor and Deputy Director at Wiser.  He writes about the cultural and economic history of South Africa, particularly the gold mining industry, the state and the development of information systems.  He studied at Wits and Johns Hopkins and completed his PhD at Northwestern in 1995.    His book -- Biometric State: the Global Politics of Identification and Surveillance in South Africa, 1850 to the Present (Cambridge, 2014) -- shows how the South African obsession with Francis

Akosua K. Darkwah is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Ghana.  She holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  Her research interest in matters of identity is fairly new and stems from a long-term research project on the theme of gender and migration.  She is particularly interested in the identify formation logics of children born to Africans from different parts of the continent.  Drawing on Fanon, she asks what shapes one’s sense of self when one is not marked by race as is often the case for mixed race children. 

Dr. Josephine Mukabera is holding a PhD in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies from Seoul National University/ South Korea, an MA degree in Development Studies from Kimmage Development Studies Centre in Ireland. She has a work experience of 11 years teaching in higher learning institutions. She did research and wrote articles related to Women Status and Gender Relations in the Post-Genocide against Tutsi in Rwanda.

Desalegn Amsalu has been a researcher at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies since 2008. He completed his PhD in Social Anthropology in 2016. He has done extensive fieldwork in Ethiopia since 2008.

His publications are related to topics of identity and victimhood, inter-ethnic relations, social marginalization and vulnerable groups, as well as legal pluralism.

He also lectures courses at the Department of Social Anthropology at Addis Ababa University. Since July 2018, he is the head of the research unit at the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, Addis Ababa University.

Professor Félix Ayoh’OMIDIRE is the Director, Institute of Cultural Studies (Ilé Irunmole), Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

Sarah Ssali (PhD) is the Associate Prof/Dean, School of Women and Gender Studies, Social Scientist with a PhD in International Health Studies.

Her areas of focus include Health systems in post conflict settings, HIV and AIDS, Identities, Institutions, Social Transformation, Policy and Politics, all undertaken in multi-disciplinary and multi-country consortia, giving her the necessary experience to manage the proposed project.