University of St Andrews

Dr Mattia Fumanti

Lecturer

Profile

For over a decade I have been conducting ethnographic research in Namibia. More specifically my work has focused on youth, elites and the making of moral public spaces in post-apartheid urban contexts. Over the years one of my research interests has been to explore the role of popular culture, internet and mobile communication technology in Africa in relation to wider discourses on entrepreneurship and economic development. During my most recent field research in June 2012 I worked with a group of young Namibian entrepreneurs and explored the making of youthful subjectivities in relation to wider socio-economic transformations in Namibia.

Alongside fieldwork in Namibia, since 2006 my research has responded to the growing recognition of the significant presence of African migrants in Britain. My research among Ghanaian Methodists in London aimed to understand the role of the African diaspora in civil society and of African churches in particular in the making of a British multicultural public sphere. Part of this research aimed to explore the significance of transnational and religious networks between Ghana and the diaspora. For this reason in 2007 and 2009 I conducted ethnographic research in Kumasi and Accra among different generations of Methodists.

I also explored the lives of homeless refugees in London, mostly from Africa, and published a joint edited report with Middlesex University Social Policy Research Center.

Increasingly I have been interested in the role of ethnographic film making in anthropological research. I am currently working on a number of short films and on two documentaries shot in Ghana and Namibia, entitled respectively 'A Crusade Ghanaian Style' and 'On Sartre Street'.

This year I have joined Fahamu Refugee Legal Aid as a country of origin information expert for Namibia and Ghana.

Specialties

Regional focus: Namibia, Ghana and African Diaspora in Britain, London. Topical interests include postcolonial studies, the state, citizenship, governance, elites and education, youth and popular culture, gender, morality, civil society and public spaces, religion, diaspora and transnationalism, entrepreneurship and new information technology, ethnographic film-making.

 

 

See also the PURE research profile.

Academic qualifications

BA Hons (Universita’ di Roma, La Sapienza, 1997), Phd (Manchester 2004)

Selected publications

(2014, in preparation) Akan London: Virtuous Citizenship and Methodism in the Gateway City

(2013, forthcoming) The Politics of Distinction: Youth, Elites and the Moral Public Space in Northern Namibia, Leiden, Brill.

(2010)  Double issue of the Journal African Diaspora on ‘The Moral Economy of the African Diaspora: Encapsulation, Estrangement and Citizenship’. Co-edited with Pnina Werbner

(2010)  Beer as Local and Transnational Commodity in Africa, co-edited with Steven Van-Wolputte, Berlin: Lit Verlag.

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

(2013) ‘Interdisciplinary responses to cultural citizenship and migration’, in The Routledge Companion to Contemporary Anthropology edited by Simon Coleman, Susan Hyatt and Ann Kingsolver.

(2013) ‘“Showing-off Aesthetics”: Looking good, making relations and being in the world in the Akan Diaspora in London’, Ethnos: journal of Social Anthropology, 78 (2)

(2013) ‘Aesthetics of diaspora: ownership and appropriation’, with Pnina Werbner, Ethnos: journal of Social Anthropology, 78 (2)

 (2012) ‘“Black Chicken-White Chicken”: Patriotism, Morality and the Aesthetics of Fandom in the 2008 African Cup of Nations in Ghana’, Soccer and Society, 13 (2): 264-276

 (2010)   ‘Virtuous Citizenship, Ethnicity and Encapsulation among Akan Speaking Ghanaian Methodists in London’, African Diaspora special double issue 2, (1-2): 1-30

(2010) ‘The Moral Economy of the African Diaspora: Citizenship, Networking and Permeable Ethnicity’ with Pnina Werbner, African Diaspora special double issue 2, (1-2): 2-11

(2010)    ‘A light-hearted bunch of ladies: Irreverent Piety and Gendered Power in the London Ghanaian Diaspora’, Africa, 8(2): 200-223

(2010)   ‘I like my Windhoek Lager’: in M.Fumanti and S.Van Wolputte (eds.) Beer as Local and Transnational Commodity in Africa, Berlin, Lit Verlag.

(2009)    ‘Immigrazione, associazionismo e cittadinanza: il caso di due associazioni Ghanesi a Londra.’ Afriche e Orienti, (1/2)

(2008)    ‘Rethinking Citizenship in the African Diaspora’, in C. Osman and B. Okot ‘Informing on Migration and Development: IDEM’, Special report for CFD and Panos.

(2007)    ‘Burying E.S: Educated Elites, Subjectivity and Distinction in Rundu’, Journal of Southern African Studies, 33(3): 469-483

(2007)    ‘Imagining post-apartheid society and culture: playfulness, officialdom and civility in a youth elite club in Northern Namibia’, in Transitions in Namibia, which changes for whom? H. Melber (ed), Uppsala, Nordic African Institute

(2006)    ‘Il paradosso della Rivoluzione incompiuta. Il Dominio Economico del Sudafrica e il processo di riaffermazione di un’elite bianca in una citta’ della Namibia settentrionale’, Afriche e Orienti, (3/4): 136-151

(2006)    ‘Education and the battle for consciousness: discourses on education in post-apartheid Namibia’, Social Analysis, 50 (3): 84-108.

(2006)    ‘Editorial: from play to knowledge: a workshop on ethnographic methodology’, with Hannah Knox, Susanne Langer and Emily Walmsley,  Anthropology Matters, 8 (2)

(2005)    (co-edited with Hannah Knox and Susanne Langer) ‘New-Methods in anthropology: postgraduate perspectives.’ Anthropology Matters, 7(1)

(2004)    ‘The making of the fieldwork-er: debating agency in elites research’, Anthropology Matters, 6(2)

(2002)   ‘Small Town Elites in Northern Namibia-The Complexity of Class Formation in Practice’ in Fox, T., Mufune P., and Winterfeldt, V. (eds) Namibia:  Society, Sociology, Windhoek: University of Namibia Press.

Books and Edited Journals:

(2011, in preparation) Akan London: Virtuous Citizenship and Methodism in the Gateway City

(2011, forthcoming) The Politics of Distinction: Youth, Elites and the Moral Public Space in Northern Namibia

(2011, forthcoming) Special issue of the Journal Ethnos on ‘Diaspora Aesthetics’ co-edited with Mark Johnson and Pnina Werbner.

(2011, Forthcoming) Special issue of the Journal Africa on ‘Small and middle-range towns in Africa’. Co-edited with Dinah Rajak.

(2010)   Double issue of the Journal African Diasporas on ‘The Moral Economy of the African Diaspora: Encapsulation, Estrangement and Citizenship’. Co-edited with Pnina Werbner

(2010)    Beer as Local and Transnational Commodity in Africa. Co-edited with Steven Van-Wolputte. Berlin, Lit Verlag.

 

Research interests

I am currently working on two research projects that are emerging from my most recent research in Namibia and Ghana. In June 2012 I travelled to Windhoek with a Carnegie Trust grant to follow the lives of young entrepreneurs at the capital. I filmed them and worked with them in order to explore the emergence of ideas of entrepreneurship and freedom among the Namibian ‘born free’ generation. This project ties in with a long term research I have been conducting in Namibia and Ghana on popular culture, internet and mobile communication technology in Africa in relation to wider discourses on entrepreneurship and economic development. The second project, entitled ‘Remotely Intimate: Aspirations, ‘Entrustment’ and the Materiality of Emotion in Transnational Ghanaian Families,’ aims to respond to a growing interest in Anthropology in the dialectics of intimacy. It will explore the intimate ethics and emotional aesthetics of Ghanaian transnational families in London and Kumasi, focusing in particular on personal and collective projects which require trust in exchange relations and joint investments among Ghanaians at home and in the diaspora. The project, which builds on my current research in London and Ghana, will begin to illuminate the role of intimacy and ethical expectations for an anthropology of gender, class and generation in transnational families.

 

Research students

Pardis Shafafi, Panagiotis Karampampas and Sandra Fernandez

Teaching

Teaching and Administrative roles

SA1001

SA2002

Youth in Africa

The Anthropology of Migration

 

 

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