Patience Kabamba
Patience Kabamba (PhD, Columbia University), lecturer in the department of anthropology at the University of Johannesburg, will spend the academic year at the Institute preparing the book manuscript “States in Africa: Informal Economy in Comparative Perspective in Cameroon, Senegal, and Nigeria.”
Kabamba’s research examines what happens after a state collapses, and whether state “failure” causes societal “failure.” He studies the strategies local actors employ in response to violent transformation of the state, with particular attention to the context of Africa’s informal economy.
Ultimately, Kabamba hopes to challenge the way scholars of postcolonial African societies conceive of the state and state failure. He is also interested in the impact of ethnicity and kinship in the production of social relations, and the phenomenon of transnational networks.
Kabamba has done extensive fieldwork in his native Democratic Republic of Congo, conducting research on the connection between transnational trade and the ongoing civil war. Previously, he served as a consultant to the United Nations Development Programme and visiting lecturer at Emory University’s Institute of African Studies.
