University of Bergen

Department Member, Department of Social Anthropology

Postdoctoral fellow

About

I am a social anthropologist and work mainly on Southern Africa and Mozambique. My research interests include the issues of violence, state, memory and tradition within political anthropology. I have just completed a PhD project (2004-2009) on colonial and postcolonial politics, state formation and the traditional field in Mozambique initiated in Sept. 2004. In October 2009 I handed in the thesis and publically defended it on 17 April 2010.

As of 16 August 2010, I am a postdoctoral fellow at the Dept. of social anthropology, UiB and will work on the project 'Social imaginaries of death, suffering and accumulation. Urban spaces of insecurity and poverty in Mozambique and Zimbabwe.'

Together with Bruce Kapferer I recently edited an anthology entitled "Crisis of the state. War and social upheaval" (Berghahn Books, 2009) -- which is available from most online bookstores like Amazon.com and Bookdepository.co.uk .

Prior to my PhD project, I wrote a Master’s thesis (Cand. Polit.) in Social anthropology at UiB entitled "'Till the soil but do not touch the bones'. Memories of violence in Mozambican re-constructive practices" (2002). The thesis sought to explore the social impact and contemporary importance of violence related to Mozambique’s civil war from 1976/77 to 1992 as well as to identify post-conflict processes of dealing with such violence.

Selected publications include:


2010 ‘Securitisation of the social and transformations of the state from Iraq to Mozambique’. In John-Andrew McNeish and Jon Harald Sande Lie (eds.), Security and development. Critical interventions series. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books.

2010 Violent becomings. State formation and the traditional field in colonial and postcolonial Mozambique. PhD thesis. Dept. of social anthropology, University of Bergen, p. 362.

2010 [with Sindre Bangstad]  A heart of darkness re-invented? A tale of Norwegian ex-soldiers in the Congo. Anthropology Today, 26(1): 8-12.

2009 ‘Multiple sovereignties and summary justice in Mozambique. A critique of some legal anthropological terms.' Social analysis, 53(3): 123-147.

2009 ’Kolonialisme på portugisisk og norsk. Plantasjen Madal i Mosambik’ [’Colonialism – Portuguese and Norwegian. The Madal plantation in Mozambique’]. In Kirsten Alsaker Kjerland and Knut Rio (eds.) Kolonitid. Nordmenn på eventyr og big business i Afrika og Oceania. Oslo: Scandinavian Academic Press, pp. 251-276. [in Norwegian]

2009 ‘Lars Buur, Steffen Jensen and Finn Stepputat (eds.) “The security-development nexus. Expressions of sovereignty in Southern Africa”’ (review essay/compte rendue). Lusotopie 16(1):198-201.

2009 (with Bruce Kapferer) (ed.) Crisis of the state. War and social upheaval. New York: Berghahn Books.

2009 ‘Sorcery and Death Squads. Transformations of State, Sovereignty, and Violence in Postcolonial Mozambique’. In Bruce Kapferer and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds.) Crisis of the state. War and social upheaval. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 210-240.

2009 (with Bruce Kapferer) ‘The Crisis of Power and Reformations of the State in Globalizing Realities’. In Bruce Kapferer and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds.) Crisis of the state. War and social upheaval. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 1-26.

2007 "Å dø her koster ikke noe". Vold, rettsantropologi og suverenitet i det postkoloniale Mosambik. ['To die here does not cost much'. Violence, legal anthropology and sovereignty in postcolonial Mozambique.] Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift, 18(3-4):280-295. [In Norwegian]

2007 Violence, sovereignty and tradition. Understanding death squads and sorcery in Chimoio, Mozambique. In Armando Marques Guedes og Maria José Lopes (red.) State and traditional law in Angola and Mozambique. Coimbra: Edições Almedina, pp. 201-261.

2006 (with Kjetil Fosshagen, Anette Fagertun og Inger Lise Teig) Antropologien og staten. En innledning. [Anthropology and the state. An introduction] Norsk Antropologisk Tidsskrift, 17(3-4):186-200. [In Norwegian]

2004 'It will rain until we are in power'. Floods, elections and memory in Mozambique. In Harri Englund and Francis B. Nyamnjoh (eds.) Rights and the Politics of Recognition in Africa (Postcolonial Encounters Series). London and New York: Zed Books, pp. 169-191.

2004 'The traditional lion is dead'. The ambivalent presence of tradition and the relation between politics and violence in Mozambique. In Camille Goirand (ed.) Lusotopie 2003. Violence et politique dans les espaces lusophones. Paris: Éditions Karthala and Centre d'Étude d'Afrique Noire (CEAN), pp. 263-281.

2002 Till the soil but do not touch the bones. Memories of violence in Mozambican re- constructive practices. Master thesis in social anthropology. Bergen: University of Bergen, p. 239.

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