05.04.2023 New Frontiers in Memory Studies: David Mwambari on Travelling Memory in Africa

The lecture will discuss a project recently started ERC-funded that aims to map and examine to what extent, and under what conditions, the life narratives of the Africa Great Lakes Region (AGLR) refugees evolve, travel, and transform across time and space. It will explore how these narratives shape relationships among refugees and communities in countries of transition and destination. It examines how life narratives change as AGLR refugees encounter preconceived notions about themselves and their communities in host countries.

David Mwambari is an associate professor at the faculty of social sciences at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven in Belgium and the Principal Investigator for TMSS project funded by European Research Council (ERC). He is a core faculty and board member at the Oxford Consortium on Human Rights, University of Oxford. He was a former tenured assistant professor, African Leadership Centre, Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy, King’s College London, UK. He was an FWO postdoctoral research fellow at the Conflict Research Group  (CRG) at Ghent University in Belgium and an assistant professor of International Relations at the United States International University–Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. Mwambari has been a fellow at the Churchill College University of Cambridge, and African Academic Diaspora fellow at The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA), Senegal. Mwambari earned a BA and MA degrees in International Relations from United States International University-Africa, a Masters in Pan African Studies, Syracuse University, New York USA, and a PhD in History from La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. He is coeditor of Beyond History: African Agency in Development, Diplomacy, and Conflict Resolution. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield International and published numerous articles in leading international academic journals and global media. His works have received numerous awards including the Nancy Millis Award for theses of exceptional merit and the Rhys Isaac Prize, both at La Trobe University, Australia.

The event is a collaboration with TraCe, the Marburg Center for Conflict Studies, the Goethe-University Frankfurt, and the Frankfurt Memory Studies Platform.

The lecture will take place on 25 April at 2:15 p.m.. Venue is the Goethe University Frankfurt, Campus Westend, IG 311