Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

African Studies and History
Harvard University
2018

Master of Science (M.Sc.)

African Studies
Edinburgh University
2005

Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) (Honors)

African Studies
University of Cape Town
2004

Bachelor of Social Science (B.Soc.Sci)

Psychological Studies
University of Cape Town
2004

Digital Humanities; Academic Freedom; History of Capitalism and Socialism; Urban History; Business History; Entrepreneurship; Transformative Feminism; Marxism.

AFST 101 Introduction to Contemporary Africa

This course aims to introduce students to what Africa means locally and globally through an interdisciplinary lens. It interrogates popular and conventional representations of the African continent across various academic disciplines, such as geography, history, anthropology, ethnomusicology, political science, and scholarly fields, such as African Studies, Cultural Studies, and Religious Studies. By combining interactive lectures, Wikipedia assignments, class visits, and team presentations, the course seeks to equip students with critical tools for making sense of the enduring historical legacy of Africa’s global encounters and the contemporary state(s) of Africa.

AFST 111 African Systems of Thought

This course aims to introduce students to selected key African thinkers across historical time and geographical space. By historical time, it means core phases, such as precolonial, colonial, and postcolonial or early and modern times. And by geographical spaces, it means five major regions of the continent—Southern, Northern, Western, Eastern, Central—and the African Diaspora. It focuses on their thoughts on issues impacting Africa(ans) presented through various media and genres. By combining interactive lectures, Wikipedia assignments, class visits, and student presentations, the course seeks to equip students with critical tools for making sense of the enduring impact of Africa’s thinkers and systems of thought on the current state(s) of Africa(ns).

AFST 107 Social Media and the African World

This course aims to introduce students to key social, cultural, economic, and political dynamics in Africa through the lenses of social media platforms and their users. It focuses on how both the government and citizens in African countries utilize digital spaces, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, WhatsApp, and interactive websites, to advance their agendas that have a profound impact on the wider society. Of particular interest is how social media is a tool and arena for state surveillance and political activism. By combining interactive lectures, Wikipedia assignments, class visits, hashtag campaigns, and student presentations, the course seeks to equip students with critical tools for grasping the impact(s) of social media on the state(s) of Africa(ns).

Harvard University’s Derek Bok Center Certificate of Distinction in Teaching

CODESRIA’s Meaning-Making Research Initiative (MRI) Competition, 2025

CODESRIA’s Meaning-Making Research Initiative (MRI) Competition

Prize: USD 25,000

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s (SSHRC) Connection Grant, 2023

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada’s (SSHRC) Connection Grant

Prize: CAD 23,980

From Citizenship to Netizenship

From Citizenship to Netizenship: Blogging for social change in Tanzania

Chambi Chachage discusses the roles of Information and Communication Technologies in empowering Tanzanian Civil Society Organizations. His article is based on a longer paper that looks at the impact of blogs, sms, lister vs and other online forums and interrogates ideas associated with Information and Communication Technologies for Development. Here Chachage focuses on blogging as an important feature of ‘netizenship’ in Tanzania.

Mwalimu Nyerere as a Global Conscience

Book Chapter: Mwalimu Nyerere as a Global Conscience in Global Africa: Into the Twenty-First Century (pp. 100-108)

Abstract: As the first president of Tanzania, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere was instrumental in the liberation of the continent of Africa from colonialism. But he also connected that liberation to similar struggles in the African diaspora and between the Global South and Global North. To do so, he championed the formation of a “new economic order” that could reduce the gap between and within rich and poor countries. Thus the socialist policy of ujamaa—“familyhood”—that he pursued in his home country was a building block toward the creation and consolidation of a worldwide brotherhood/sisterhood based on equality and dignity

Globalization and the Making of East Africa's Asian Entrepreneurship Networks

Book Chapter: Globalization and the Making of East Africa’s Asian Entrepreneurship Networks in International African Bibliography Online

The International African Bibliography Online (IABO) is a leading specialist bibliography of African Studies. It already contains 140.000 entries from the International African Bibliography published in the years 1971 to 2023. About 4.000 new entries will be added every year. The IABO can be browsed by categories and offers detailed search options.

Edited Book: Africa’s Liberation: The Legacy of Nyerere

Africa’s Liberation: The Legacy of Nyerere

Julius Kambarage Nyerere, the first president of Tanzania, was a Pan-Africanist and an internationalist, and this book includes contributions from leading commentators—those who worked and fought imperialism alongside Nyerere, members of a younger generation, and Nyerere in his own words. The writings reflect on Nyerere and liberation, the Commonwealth, leadership, economic development, land, human rights, and education. Above all, they are a testament to the growing recognition of the need to rekindle the fires of African socialism to which Nyerere was deeply committed.