Each year, the African Peacebuilding Network (APN)–Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa (Next Gen) program selects a new cohort of fellows for its highly competitive fellowships. This year, the APN awarded 17 Individual Research Fellowships (IRF), while Next Gen awarded 38 Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships and 6 Post-Doctoral Writing Fellowships. Among the Doctoral Dissertation Fellowships, 8 are Dissertation Proposal fellows, 14 are Dissertation Research fellows, and 16 are Dissertation Completion fellows.

APN Individual Research Fellowship

The Individual Research Fellowship (IRF) supports six months of field-based research, through which recipients produce research-based knowledge that is relevant to and has a significant impact on peacebuilding scholarship, policy, and practice on the continent. Since its inception in 2012, the APN has had fellows from 30 countries and awarded 195 fellowships to 220 individuals.

The APN supports independent African research on conflict-affected countries and neighboring regions of the continent, as well as the integration of African knowledge into global policy communities. APN fellowships facilitate the production of high-quality African peacebuilding research and promote its visibility among policy practitioners and scholars around the world, including Africa, with the aim of influencing academic discourse and shaping policy.

This year’s cohort of APN IRF fellows represent 11 nationalities from each region of Africa, including the program’s first Somali fellow. The projects listed below showcase a wide diversity of scholarship, including topics such as maritime politics in the Gulf of Guinea, conflict resolution and wildlife management in Tanzania, histories and memories of repression in Morocco, and indigenous and gendered perspectives on climate change-related conflict in Uganda. Fellows come from Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

Below is the list of 2023 APN IRF Fellows:

• Abdaljbar Alhaj Mustafa Mohamed | University of Khartoum (Sudan)
  •  “Custom and Power at time of Revolution: The galad institution and peacebuilding in “Post-Inghaz” Eastern Sudan”
• Abdul-Gafar Oluwatobiloba Oshodi | Lagos State University (Nigeria)
  • “News media and Nigerians in Ghana: Exploring the Prospects and Challenges of Peace Journalism”
• Ahmed Sharif Ibrahim | St. Augustine University of Tanzania
  • “Roots of Islamist politics: land and real estate conflicts in Somalia”
• Alagaw Ababu Kifle | African Leadership Centre (ALC), Nairobi (Kenya)
  • “(How) can the Ethiopian Peace Process be Grounded in Local Peace and Reconciliation? A View from Below”
• Alice Wabule | Cavendish University Uganda
  • “Indigenous gendered beliefs and practices for Alternative Strategies Against Climate Conflicts”
• Edwin Estomii Ngowi | Sokoine University of Agriculture (Tanzania)
  • “Space-Time Analysis to Uncover the Nature and Complexities of Farmer-Herder Conflicts in Kilosa and Mvomero Districts, Tanzania: A Geodatabase Development”
• Godfrey Hove | National University of Lesotho
  • “The Land question and Conflict in Mafeteng District of Lesotho: the imperatives of land management and peacebuilding”
• Hakeem Olakunle Onapajo | Nile University of Nigeria
  • “Child Soldiers and Armed Conflict in Northeastern Nigeria: Understanding an Unpacked Dimension of Insurgency in Nigeria”
• Irene Doosuur Mngutyo | Benue State University, Makurdi (Nigeria)
  • “Public Realms, Urban Protest and Peace Building: The ENDSARS Protests in Nigeria”
• Ivan Marowa | University of Zimbabwe
  • “Memories and the Dynamics of Social Conflict in Dandawa Chiefdom, North-Western Zimbabwe: A Socio-historical Analysis, c1976-2018”
• Job Muiruri Mwaura | University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
  • “Ethical Guidelines for Artificial Intelligence in Peacebuilding and Conflict Resolution in Kenya”
• Louis Kusi Frimpong | University of Environment and Sustainable Development (Ghana)
  • “The urban wetland-conflict nexus in Ghana’s urbanization: A commons approach to managing ecologically sensitive resources in Accra”
• Mustapha Hadji | Moroccan Institute for Policy Analysis
  • “The Silenced Memories of the Years of Lead: Perspectives From the Margins”
• Nadège Ludvine Tedongmo Epse Kaman | University of Dschang (Cameroon)
  • “Institutional imbroglios in the Gulf of Guinea. When the fight against maritime crime leads to competitive logics”
• Ruth Wairimu John | The Open University of Tanzania
  • “Community-Based Wildlife Management Area as a tool for conflict resolution between Conservation Practices and Livelihood needs in Loliondo Game Reserve, Tanzania”
• Sokfa Francis John | University of Pretoria (South Africa)
  • “The ‘Local’-Digital Nexus in peacebuilding in Africa: A Transformative and Decolonial Investigation”
• Yemurai Gwatirisa | Botho University, Gaborone (Botswana)
  • “The role played by the arts in fostering peace and reconciliation in the aftermath of the Gukurahundi genocide in Zimbabwe”

Warm congratulations to this year’s African Peacebuilding Network Fellowship Award recipients. The APN looks forward to working with you and seeing the results of your promising research.

For more information on APN fellowships, please write to: apn@ssrc.org or visit our pages on Individual Research Fellowships and Working Group Research Fellowships. The call for applications for 2024 APN fellowships will open in October.

Introducing SSRC’s Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa’s 2023 Fellows

The Social Science Research Council’s Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa program is pleased to announce this year’s cohort of 44 fellows: 8 Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Fellows, 14 Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellows, 16 Doctoral Dissertation Completion Fellows, and 6 Post-Doctoral Writing Fellows.

The Next Gen program supports tertiary education in Africa by awarding a sequence of 3 fellowship opportunities for promising PhD students to do research and make steady progress toward completing their doctoral degrees, as well as a follow-up post-doctoral fellowship aimed at the completion of a journal article or book manuscript. Since its inception in 2012, Next Gen has awarded 487 fellowships.

The 44 fellows listed below are working on a range of topics relating to peace, security, development, politics and governance, gender and youth, land and climate change, and media and cultural studies. In the cohort, 10 nationalities and 18 institutions are represented. Fellows come from Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

Below is the complete list of 2023 Next Gen fellows, categorized by award:

Next Gen Doctoral Dissertation Proposal Fellowship

Doctoral dissertation proposal fellowships support PhD students working on developing a doctoral dissertation research proposal as well as students who recently completed a master’s degree and seek to enroll in a PhD program. The fellowships support short-term research costs of up to US$3,000 to develop a doctoral dissertation proposal.

• Brenda Birungi | Makerere University (Uganda)
  • “Receiving Cash Amidst Diverging Norms: A Study on Lactating South Sudanese Refugee Beneficiaries in West Nile, Uganda”
• Ebenezer Kwesi Bosomprah| University of Ghana, Legon
  • “Conceptualizations of Children in Conflict with the Law in Ghana”
• Nyasha Blessed Bushu| University of the Free State (South Africa)
  • “Beyond Chiefly Courts: African Indigenous Justice Delivery Practices Under Early Colonial Contact in Southern Rhodesia c.1890-1923”
• Stanley Elias Kiswaga | Makerere University (Uganda)
  • “Popular Theatre and the Nation: Rethinking Nation-building in the neoliberal Tanzania”
• Lorato Palesa Modongo | Stellenbosch University (South Africa)
  • “‘What maketh a man’: An exploration of Media Reporting on Intimate Femicide cases in Botswana and linkages with constructs of masculinities”
• Kenechukwu Peace Nwachukwu | Makerere University (Uganda)
  • “State Power, Production of History and Political Development in Nigeria: Reading Post- Independence Nigeria’s Unresolved Political History through the IPOB Separatist Agitation”
• Athanas Mutisya Peter | University of Nairobi (Kenya)
  • “Narrating Violence: Narrative Representation of War Memory in Selected War Autobiographies from Africa”
• Freedman Delali Woledzi | University of Ghana, Legon
  • “Move to Where? Smallholder Farmers Climate Im(mobility) Decisions on Household Food Security in the Kwahu Afram Plains North District”

Next Gen Doctoral Dissertation Research Fellowship

The doctoral dissertation research fellowship supports 6-12 months of dissertation research costs of up to US$15,000 on a dissertation topic related to peace, security, and development.

• Milcah Abasabyona | Makerere University (Uganda)
  • “Intimacies of identification and lived citizenship among the ghetto youths in Kampala-Uganda”
• Martin Buhamizo | Makerere University (Uganda)
  • “Bureaucracies of National Digitization and Citizen Certification in Uganda”
• Garikai Chaunza | Rhodes University (South Africa)
  • “Activist Radio, the struggle to empower audiences and the shift from analogue to digital media; a case study of Zimbabwe”
• Kigambo Gaaki | University of Cape Town (South Africa)
  • “Mediating Contentious Politics in Hybrid Regimes: Press Coverage of Political Protests in Uganda”
• Erin Vicky Hazan | University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
  • “En(Gendering) Imprisonment: The Lived Experiences of Female Offenders: Transvaal, 1920s- 1980s”
• Dare Leke Idowu | University of Johannesburg (South Africa)
  • “Regional Power Politics in the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR): Nigeria and South Africa in comparative perspective”
• Elizabeth Nafula Khaemba | Moi University (Kenya)
  • “Language of Reporting Murders Associated with Prominent Personalities in Print Media in Kenya”
• Charles Felix Komba | University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania)
  • “Understanding Interventions of Non-State Actors in Preventing Violent Extremism in Tanzania”
• Olive Lomokol | Makerere University (Uganda)
  • “Shifting perspectives on ‘pastoral’ violence: the persistence of the “Karamoja problem” in Uganda”
• Gerald Jeremiah Tendai Mandisodza | University of the Western Cape (South Africa)
  • “The role of forum shopping in the construction of customary law institutions in legal pluralistic contexts: towards strengthening women’s property rights in Limpopo, South Africa”
• Medina Moosa | University of the Western Cape (South Africa)
  • “Visions of Jihad: South African liberation and apartheid counterinsurgency through the movement of the Afghan Mujahedeen in southern Africa in the 1980s”
• Matseliso Rethabile Motsoane | University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
  • “The Making of Mohlouoa Ramakatane’s photographic archive, 1950s-present”
• Ebere Florence Nnanwube | University of Ibadan (Nigeria)
  • “Plastic recycling practices and the victimization experiences of female plastic recyclers in Lagos state, Nigeria”
• Martin Fikiri Oswald | University of Cape Town (South Africa)
  • “Who votes and why? An empirical examination of the predictors of voter turnout and democratic consolidation in Tanzania, 2010-2020”

Next Gen Doctoral Dissertation Completion Fellowship

The doctoral dissertation completion fellowship supports a one-year leave from teaching and administrative responsibilities through a stipend up to US$10,000 to permit the completion of a dissertation that advances research on peace, security, and development topics.

• Delecia Leigh Adams | University of the Western Cape (South Africa)
  • “The Protection of Child Witnesses in the South African Criminal Justice System”
• Issah Suhiyini Alhassan | Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
  • “Farmer-Herder Conflict and Livelihood Nexus in Ashanti Region of Ghana”
• Lesego Thabang Chauke | University of Cape Town (South Africa)
  • “Mnemonic Sketches: On Mourning and Spectrality in Contemporary South African Performance”
• Samson Olaoluwa Faboye | University of Johannesburg (South Africa)
  • “Exploring the Future of Traditional Governance Systems in Response to Expanding Urbanization in North West and KwaZulu Natal Provinces of South Africa”
• Asher Simiso Gamedze | University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
  • “Ensemble study and struggle: A history of the Yu Chi Chan Club and the National Liberation Front”
• Jacob Katumusiime | Makerere University (Uganda)
  • “Beyond Religio-Cultural Violence: A Historico-Political Re-Contextualization of the Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God”
• Anna-Maria Kok | University of Cape Town (South Africa)
  • “Dark Networks: A South African Cash-in-Transit Crime Case Study”
• Grace Njoki Maina | Makerere University (Uganda)
  • “A Historical Analysis of Women in Traditional Governance Institutions: The Agikuyu ‘NDUNDU CIA AAKA’, 1925-2010”
• Keneuoe Alice Maphosa | University of Pretoria (South Africa)
  • “A Different Class!? Basotho Women Informal Cross-Border Traders to Botswana”
• Tracey Chipo Muradzikwa | University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
  • “’State law’ and women in chieftaincy succession crisis: The case of Nswazi, village, Zimbabwe”
• Brezhnev Henry Otieno | Tangaza University College (Kenya)
  • “Societal Perceptions and Attitudes towards Women with Disabilities’ Access to Maternal Healthcare Services in Kibra, Nairobi”
• Benezet Mugisha Rwelengera | Sokoine University of Agriculture (Tanzania)
  • “Framing Pastoralism- Forestry Relations in Tanzania: Knowledge, Power and Identity”
• Cherith Amanda Sanger | University of the Western Cape (South Africa)
  • “Corruption in the Policing of Sex Work: A Feminist Legal Analysis”
• Jabulani Shaba | Stellenbosch University
  • “A socioeconomic, environmental and political history of women in Artisanal and Small-scale Gold Mining in Mazowe, Zimbabwe, c.1980 to 2021”
• Magolanga Shagembe Shelembi | University of Dar es Salaam (Tanzania)
  • “An Exploration of the Child Domestic Workers’ Lived Experiences and their Psychosocial Wellbeing in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania”
• Daniel Kojo Leon Brenya Yeboah | University for Development Studies (Ghana)
  • “Conflict and State-building: The Dynamics of Farmer-Herder Conflicts in Asante Akim North Municipality, Ghana”

Next Gen Post-Doctoral Writing Fellowship

The post-doctoral writing fellowship supports up to six months of completing an article or book manuscript through a stipend of up to US$3,000. It will enable the recipient to buy time off from teaching and administrative duties to focus exclusively on finalizing an article for a peer-reviewed journal or completing a book manuscript based on a Next Gen-supported doctoral dissertation that advances research on peace, security, and development. This fellowship is exclusively available for Next Gen alumni.

• Kgomotso Samuel Moshugi | University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
  • “Mobility and Dispersed Collaborations through Localization”
• Tsitsi Jane Mpofu-Mketwa | Future Water Institute, University of Cape Town (South Africa)
  • “’Vuku’zenzele!’: The pivotal role of agency in alleviating urban poverty, lessons from Cape Town’s Langa Township women informal traders”
• Gloria Naantoe Alli | University of Jos (Nigeria)
  • “Beyond hybrid conflict management: Impact of landgrabs on conflict resolution in Central-Nigeria”
• Thatshisiwe Ndlovu | University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
  • “Standing their Ground while seated: The Birth of Widowhood Activism”
• Simbarashe Nyuke | University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa)
  • “The price of Hope: Sacrificing and ‘Seeding’ for Churchizenship in Johannesburg”
• Rosette Sifa Vuninga | University of the Western Cape (South Africa)
  • “Congolese Refugees in South Africa: Contests around Identity Politics and State Documentation”

If you are interested in applying for a fellowship from Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa,  you can learn more about our different fellowships here or by writing to nextgenafrica@ssrc.org. The call for applications for the 2024 fellowships will be launched along with the APN call for applications in October.

Congratulations to this year’s APN-Next Gen Fellows!