Please note: Catherine has left the "International Comparative Studies Program" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.
I am a socio-cultural anthropologist with interdisciplinary training in sociology and the natural sciences. My work is propelled by the examination of how representational practices, through writing and other forms of creative expression construct and mediate the world. I pay close attention to these practices in my own diverse and cross-disciplinary writing projects as well as when I teach. By taking the idea of America seriously, as well as putting Africa and media about Africa center stage, through a study of travel and tourism between these two spaces, my book, Travel, Humanitarianism and Becoming American in Africa shows the global connections and disconnections on which contemporary identities are formed. My second project builds on and develops my work on transnational encounters and mobilities, imperial relationships and identity construction to explore what it means to be South African twenty years and more post-apartheid. How are South Africans navigating the consistent racialized economic divides alongside a changing set of discourses about belonging, nationality and race? What happens when these conversations about race and identity, Africanness and whiteness meet in the contested racialized institutions of Europe and America especially in the spheres of theatre, art and education?
| Office Location: | Ics Program, 210-B East Duke Building, Durham, NC 27708-0405 |
| Office Phone: | +1 919 660 4374 |
| Email Address: | |
Teaching (Spring 2024):
| Ph.D. | University of California, Berkeley | 2003 |
| M.Phil, Archaeology & Sociology | University of Cape Town | 1993 |
| BA, Hons. African Studies (First Class Degree) | University of Cape Town | 1990 |
| BS, Archaeology | University of Cape Town | 1989 |
I am a socio-cultural anthropologist with interdisciplinary training in sociology and the natural sciences. My work is propelled by the examination of how representational practices, through writing and other forms of creative expression construct and mediate the world. I pay close attention to these practices in my own diverse and cross-disciplinary writing projects as well as when I teach. By taking the idea of America seriously, as well as putting Africa and media about Africa center stage, through a study of travel and tourism between these two spaces, my book, Travel, Humanitarianism and Becoming American in Africa shows the global connections and disconnections on which contemporary identities are formed. My second project builds on and develops my work on transnational encounters and mobilities, imperial relationships and identity construction to explore what it means to be South African twenty years and more post-apartheid. How are South Africans navigating the consistent racialized economic divides alongside a changing set of discourses about belonging, nationality and race? What happens when these conversations about race and identity, Africanness and whiteness meet in the contested racialized institutions of Europe and America especially in the spheres of theatre, art and education?