Dr Doris Okenwa

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Evans-Pritchard Fellow in African Anthropology and Lecturer in African Studies

 

Doris is an anthropologist of development working at the intersection of the Extractive Industries, Energy, Ethical Capitalism and African Politics with regional expertise in East and West Africa. In a forthcoming monograph provisionally titled Impermanent Development: The Promise of Oil and Distributive Politics in Kenya, Doris offers an in-depth longitudinal study of Kenya's oil encounter, a nascent player in the league of African oil states. Some aspects of this research can be found in the co-edited volume on Land, Investment & Politics: Reconfiguring Eastern Africa's Pastoral Drylands. Her current project on energy and extraction juxtaposes quotidian contexts of indigenous capitalism with high-level international processes of energy transition using a regional comparative lens. Her work on African politics is encapsulated in the ongoing project - Redesigning Democracy, Alternative Politics and Popular Culture in Africa is aimed at centring social movements, popular culture and activism within debates of mainstream politics and political change on the continent.  

 

Prior to academia, Doris worked as a professional journalist in Nigeria and the UK. She studied Mass Communication at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), International Development and Rights at Goldsmiths University of London and obtained a PhD in Anthropology at the London School of Economics (LSE). 

 

She joined the African Studies Centre in September 2021 as an Evans Pritchard Fellow in African Anthropology and Lecturer in African Studies.

 

Research Interests

  • Critical Development
  • Extractive Industries
  • Extractive Communities
  • Energy
  • Critical Ethical Capitalism (e.g. CSR)
  • African Politics and Popular Culture

 

Publications:

 

 

Research Interests
Contact Information

Email: doris.okenwa@africa.ox.ac.uk

Publications