Jess Auerbach
University of Cape Town, Graduate School of Business, Faculty Member
- African Leadership University, Center for Social Science, Department MemberOpen University of Mauritius, Centre for Intercultural Studies, Faculty Member, and 3 moreadd
- Education, Anthropology, Visual Studies, Visual Anthropology, Narrative, South African Politics and Society, and 26 moreVisual Culture in Education, South African Literature, The Lusophone World, Luso-African Studies, Luso-Africa, Culture, Ethnicity, State, Religion, Migration, Displacement, Oral Traditions, Gender, Borders and Borderlands, Minorities, Language politics, Refugees, Refugee memory, Social Sciences, Research Methodology, Qualitative methodology, Photography, Modernity/coloniality/decoloniality, Post-Conflict State Building, Angola, and Ann Laura Stoleredit
- Researcher and Writer bridging both scholarly and applied fields of social sciences. PhD Stanford, MSc Oxford, BSocSc... moreResearcher and Writer bridging both scholarly and applied fields of social sciences. PhD Stanford, MSc Oxford, BSocSci UCT. Expertise in Lusophone Africa, Brazil and Indian Ocean Islands. Extensive teaching experience from high school through to doctoral level, expertise in curriculum design and decolonial pedagogy.
Senior Lecturer in Anthropology, North West Universityedit - James Ferguson - Stanford edit
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text for non-commercial purposes of the text... more
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). This license allows you to share, copy, distribute and transmit the text; to adapt the text for non-commercial purposes of the text providing attribution is made to the authors (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). Attribution should include the following information:
Research Interests:
In this article I explore changing state-citizen relationships in Mauritius. To do so, I outline and provide analysis of the system through which this Indian Ocean island has historically managed its diversitya process that I call... more
In this article I explore changing state-citizen relationships in Mauritius. To do so, I outline and provide analysis of the system through which this Indian Ocean island has historically managed its diversitya process that I call conscripting communalism. Conscripting communalism was formulated at independence in a context of behavioural predictions for the future that the internet era has challenged in powerful ways. To illustrate my argument, I explore three specific moments when ethnic and religious discourses were surpassed by collective concern within a rapidly authoritarianizing state: first, the sinking of the Wakashio oil tanker off the coast of Mauritius in 2020, which resulted in national solidarity towards the environment rather than communal violence; second, proposed legislation put forward by the Mauritian Information and Communication Technology Authority (ICTA) in 2021, which attempted to enable state surveillance of social media and which was soundly resisted by both domestic and external parties. And finally, I explore 2022 accusations that the Mauritian government authorized the installation of digital interception technology by representatives of the Indian state on one of the country's fibre optic cables. The article argues that Mauritius represents an important site of analysis of the tensions between competing global visions of human rights, political autonomy, surveillance, solidarity and expectations for the future and the role of the internet in shaping these competing visions. I explore how new technologies have become the tools of both repression and resistance. The implications ripple far beyond the island.
Research Interests:
This article uses a student assessment developed in the "emergency" conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa as a tool for refracting and reflecting (Strassler 2011) the changing realities of higher education around the world.... more
This article uses a student assessment developed in the "emergency" conditions of the Covid-19 pandemic in South Africa as a tool for refracting and reflecting (Strassler 2011) the changing realities of higher education around the world. It examines the Archive of Kindness as an example of the possibilities enabled by digitally mediated learning, as well as the challenges of teaching and learning in environments where students enter university with varying degrees of digital literacy and skill. It poses questions pertaining to the futures of higher education in a world in which biopolitics are increasingly determined by and through screens, and suggests that uncritical engagements with digital platforms and the corporate entities behind them pose dangers to emerging forms of citizenship. The article details the processes of knowledge curatorialism which are increasingly likely to determine the shape of learning in tertiary education, particularly within the university sector. Here, it argues that the Humanities and Social Sciences will need to play a leading role in providing the language and tools for thinking through the pedagogy of hyperlinkages, where the boundaries between online and offline spaces are increasingly difficult to parse.
Research Interests:
This article considers the social, political and productive engagements with air as a foundational – but often invisible – consideration in scholarship. Drawing on ethnographic research in Angola, it develops Arundhati Roy’s notion of... more
This article considers the social, political and productive
engagements with air as a foundational – but often invisible –
consideration in scholarship. Drawing on ethnographic research
in Angola, it develops Arundhati Roy’s notion of “portals” as entry
points into the reflection on and theorization of air. The paper
argues that an “sanitized sensorium” of late globalized capitalism
has shaped ethnographic work over the last two centuries, and in
so doing has created an overwhelming reliance on visually
informed insights that reveal only a small part of what can be
made sense of. This is true for anthropology, as has been well
documented, but it is equally true for the field of African studies.
Here I suggest that in entering through alternative portals,
including the olfactory, we might attend to the spaces between
object and subject in which “the fullness of air” may yield
valuable insmell – alongside insight.
engagements with air as a foundational – but often invisible –
consideration in scholarship. Drawing on ethnographic research
in Angola, it develops Arundhati Roy’s notion of “portals” as entry
points into the reflection on and theorization of air. The paper
argues that an “sanitized sensorium” of late globalized capitalism
has shaped ethnographic work over the last two centuries, and in
so doing has created an overwhelming reliance on visually
informed insights that reveal only a small part of what can be
made sense of. This is true for anthropology, as has been well
documented, but it is equally true for the field of African studies.
Here I suggest that in entering through alternative portals,
including the olfactory, we might attend to the spaces between
object and subject in which “the fullness of air” may yield
valuable insmell – alongside insight.
Research Interests:
This article explores the place of ideology and what I call analytic allegiances in the nascent higher education domain in Angola. Based on ethnographic research, it considers the postWar emergence of the sector and its implications for... more
This article explores the place of ideology and what I call analytic allegiances in the nascent higher education domain in Angola. Based on ethnographic research, it considers the postWar emergence of the sector and its implications for global higher education. Focusing primarily on two institutions, one state, one private, it probes how contesting cold war ideologies continue to manifest through the pedagogic, curricula, and campus-based decisions of higher education leaders in the country. It develops Jonathan Jansen's notion of "political symbolism" to give attention to individual faculty member's personal scholarly trajectories that result in analytic allegiances within domains of friendship and influence. It argues that exposure to political and social systems and symbols at formative times of individual faculty's biographies radically inform the ways in which the emergent sector is being approached and molded today. It demonstrates how the existence of pluralistic knowledge traditions maintained through analytic allegiance and political symbolism have equipped Angola well for the transformative processes required in contemporary higher education.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
"Da água ao vinho” explora como Angola mudou desde o fim da guerra civil em 2002. Seu foco está na classe média – definida como aqueles com uma casa, um carro e uma educação – e seu consumo, aspirações e esperanças para suas famílias.... more
"Da água ao vinho” explora como Angola mudou desde o fim da guerra civil em 2002. Seu foco está na classe média – definida como aqueles com uma casa, um carro e uma educação – e seu consumo, aspirações e esperanças para suas famílias. Parte-se da pergunta “o que está funcionando em Angola?” em vez de “o que está errado?” e faz uma escolha deliberada e política de dar atenção à beleza e à felicidade na vida cotidiana em um país que teve uma história incomumente conturbada. Cada capítulo enfoca um dos cinco sentidos, com a introdução e a conclusão provocando uma reflexão sobre propriocepção (ou cinestesia) e curiosidade. Várias mídias são empregadas – poesia, receitas, fotos, quadrinhos e outros experimentos textuais – para envolver os leitores e seus sentidos. Escrito para um público amplo, este texto é um excelente complemento para o estudo da África, do mundo lusófono, do desenvolvimento internacional, da etnografia sensorial e da escrita etnográfica.
Research Interests:
Ecological research and practice are crucial to understanding and guiding more positive relationships between people and ecosystems. However, ecology as a discipline and the diversity of those who call themselves ecologists have also been... more
Ecological research and practice are crucial to understanding and guiding more positive relationships between people and ecosystems.
However, ecology as a discipline and the diversity of those who call themselves ecologists have also been shaped and
held back by often exclusionary Western approaches to knowing and doing ecology. To overcome these historical constraints
and to make ecology inclusive of the diverse peoples inhabiting Earth’s varied ecosystems, ecologists must expand their knowledge,
both in theory and practice, to incorporate varied perspectives, approaches and interpretations from, with and within
the natural environment and across global systems. We outline five shifts that could help to transform academic ecological
practice: decolonize your mind; know your histories; decolonize access; decolonize expertise; and practise ethical ecology in
inclusive teams. We challenge the discipline to become more inclusive, creative and ethical at a moment when the perils of
entrenched thinking have never been clearer.
However, ecology as a discipline and the diversity of those who call themselves ecologists have also been shaped and
held back by often exclusionary Western approaches to knowing and doing ecology. To overcome these historical constraints
and to make ecology inclusive of the diverse peoples inhabiting Earth’s varied ecosystems, ecologists must expand their knowledge,
both in theory and practice, to incorporate varied perspectives, approaches and interpretations from, with and within
the natural environment and across global systems. We outline five shifts that could help to transform academic ecological
practice: decolonize your mind; know your histories; decolonize access; decolonize expertise; and practise ethical ecology in
inclusive teams. We challenge the discipline to become more inclusive, creative and ethical at a moment when the perils of
entrenched thinking have never been clearer.
Research Interests:
This paper explores the lives of 12 Mauritian Muslim women of three generations, and the ways in which they negotiate agency in what is at once a multicultural, pluralistic island nation and also a space in which religious boundaries are... more
This paper explores the lives of 12 Mauritian Muslim women of three generations, and the ways in which they negotiate agency in what is at once a multicultural, pluralistic island nation and also a space in which religious boundaries are socially and institutionally maintained. Using the concept of intersectional religious agency, we argue that the experiences of the Muslim women from our sample are best understood in terms
of their daily, creative and untidy negotiations of the porous interfaces of class, caste, profession, patriarchal structures, religion, cultural repertoires and secular arrangements. In a country shaped by the complex navigation between and within groups’ social
stratification, these women are at once witness to the enormous changes that have taken place in Mauritius since independence, and participants in local and global discourses pertaining to both religion and the place(s) of women. We expose how women take ownership of compromise as a tool to negotiate both secular and religious boundaries. This negotiation is made more complex when it is undertaken by a group who are a ‘majority minority’ within the island state. This, we believe, adds important insight into the study of small but diverse community structures, and in particular the constantly shifting tones of women’s voices within such space.
of their daily, creative and untidy negotiations of the porous interfaces of class, caste, profession, patriarchal structures, religion, cultural repertoires and secular arrangements. In a country shaped by the complex navigation between and within groups’ social
stratification, these women are at once witness to the enormous changes that have taken place in Mauritius since independence, and participants in local and global discourses pertaining to both religion and the place(s) of women. We expose how women take ownership of compromise as a tool to negotiate both secular and religious boundaries. This negotiation is made more complex when it is undertaken by a group who are a ‘majority minority’ within the island state. This, we believe, adds important insight into the study of small but diverse community structures, and in particular the constantly shifting tones of women’s voices within such space.
Research Interests:
Newspaper article on Mauritian Oil Spill
Research Interests:
Perspectives from Anthropology in the SAJS Special Issue on responses to Covid-19 from the humanities and social sciences
Research Interests:
The Introduction and Graphic Elements of an ethnography of Angola written to support research methods teaching in the broader social sciences.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
This paper presents an analysis of contemporary citizenship in one group of Angolan boy scouts in 2014. It uses Shiera El-Malik's notion of 'crevice moments' 1 to explore specific instances of dialogue and action which reveal opening and... more
This paper presents an analysis of contemporary citizenship in one group of Angolan boy scouts in 2014. It uses Shiera El-Malik's notion of 'crevice moments' 1 to explore specific instances of dialogue and action which reveal opening and possibility within a largely closed state that have thus far not been reflected in existing scholarly literature. The paper further considers the reasons for scouting's popularity in postwar Angola, arguing that its military structure, religious basis, and focus on 'adventure' and social interactions have made it a highly desirable space for young people in a context where few opportunities exist for leisure activities. Finally, scouting enables a reconstitution of military and ideological symbols including uniforms, the socialist ideological construction of 'the new man, ' and 'nature' in a way that, as one scout leader put it, is 'fit for peace'. In this process, past, present and future are reconstituted by a movement that itself is formed and transformed in contradiction and colonial echo.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Começarei com um mapa que normalmente utilizo quando falo do meu tra-balho, pois ele explicita o modo como venho conceitualizando meu campo de pesquisa. Embora a pesquisa seja baseada em Angola, ela exige um engajamento constante com o... more
Começarei com um mapa que normalmente utilizo quando falo do meu tra-balho, pois ele explicita o modo como venho conceitualizando meu campo de pesquisa. Embora a pesquisa seja baseada em Angola, ela exige um engajamento constante com o Atlântico Sul, o que exige repensar espaço e poder nos termos de tradições fora do eixo do chamado norte global. Mesmo Portugal é frequente-mente considerado insignificante. Autores como Luis Felipe de Alencastro (que, como muitos outros, publica principalmente em português) documentaram a co-constituição do Brasil por Angola, e de Angola pelo Brasil. Uma breve digressão histórica dessas relações começaria pelo colonialismo português do século XV, em que a costa de Angola fornecia escravos para o Bra-sil. Os portugueses só ocuparam o interior quando ficou claro que se eles não o fizessem, alguma outra potência colonizadora o faria; todavia, não fizeram muito por lá. Em 1975, a Revolução dos Cravos em Portugal levou duzentos mil por-tugueses a deixarem o país no espaço de uma semana, deixando quase tudo para trás. A partir desse momento, dois grupos rivais (MPLA e UNITA) passaram a reivindicar a liderança da nova nação, deslanchando uma guerra civil alimentada pelo contexto da Guerra Fria. A guerra civil só terminou em 2002, com a morte CAPÍTULO 25
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
A discussion about what it means to 'fight the world's fight' and 'do good.'
Research Interests:
Explanation of vision for social sciences, written as an assignment in a job interview process just after finishing PhD in 2016. Published here to verify intellectual ownership.
Research Interests:
This is a review of a film about actors who are performing the lives of the translators, who themselves interpreted at the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings in South Africa from 1996 to 1999. This review... more
This is a review of a film about actors who are performing the lives of the translators, who themselves interpreted at the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) hearings in South Africa from 1996 to 1999. This review itself adds another layer to a thickly textured series of narratives within narratives, feelings within feelings , and responsibilities within responsibilities pertaining to storytelling that the event, the play, and the film all evoke-captured in a broader project called Truth in Translation (www.truthintranslation.org). Collectively, these all explore what it means to be a conduit of another person's truth-a question, of course, of tremendous relevance to anthropology. A Snake Gives Birth to a Snake is a documentary in its own right and does not attempt to engage with the genre of ethnographic filmmaking either explicitly or implicitly. The themes are highly relevant to both undergraduate and graduate teaching, and I would strongly recommend it for ped-agogical purposes. It mixes interviews, recordings of stage acting, candid camera shots of actors not acting, archival footage, and more, and it is scripted and directed in a way that is unsparing on the viewer's emotions. To summarize and comment upon the unfolding of the "plot" would not do justice to its many layers. I will therefore highlight three questions that it directly asks of its viewers, using these questions as the hooks upon which to hang the review as a whole. My hope is that if others use the film in teaching, these questions might also serve as a beginning place for rich discussion. FIRST QUESTION: MUST WE FORGIVE THE PAST TO SURVIVE THE FUTURE? This documentary follows actors who were playing translators. The translators were real people who engaged in a professional contract to translate during the TRC and were profoundly affected by the experience. Both actors and translators lived many of the events being described and explored, and the overarching question of "Must we forgive the past
Research Interests:
African Studies scholars write for the gate-keepers, to prove our own legitimacy, for the stimulation of conferences and the relief of rising recognition by algorithms. Writing from the perspective of an island, continents are vast... more
African Studies scholars write for the gate-keepers, to prove our own legitimacy, for the stimulation of conferences and the relief of rising recognition by algorithms. Writing from the perspective of an island, continents are vast entities with enough space for loneliness and separation. The world has been mapped such that the journeys between continents are almost ignored-more so the spaces within the oceans of rest, recuperation, and succor. But currents still link the continents, and the islands between them are critical beads on the chains that bind us. Long distance transportation of goods, ideas, people, and even rats requires knowing islands, and working with/on/against/in/through them. Shipping highways marked onto the sea by traces of oil left in passing wakes. The industrial machine has been laid upon oceanic surfaces. Vast worlds beneath an echo, sonar, imagination. Internet cables below, marine peons on tight delivery schedules above. How do we reflect "Africa" from here? Mirror, mirage, line on a map, that which is below Mauritius on the Tables of Bureaucratic Development. Point of Departure for some. Point of Arrival for all. Slavery. Indenture. Tax Haven. "Academic study is like adding one grain of knowledge-rice to the meal of human reference." I repeat received wisdom sagely to a graduating student. "The bowl is all wrong" was the dry response. She left my office and went to lead a Fridays for the Future march-islands are vulnerable to climate change, and so is Africa.
Research Interests:
A public media article on an emergent project entitled the 'Archive of Kindness' which records acts of support and solidarity between South Africans and residents in South Africa during the lock down.
Research Interests:
This article explores what is at stake in writing about "Africa" in the context of Covid-19.
Research Interests:
This is a Twitter Essay on how anthropology can, and must, adjust to changing styles of reading and thinking. It explores the stakes of this process and the impact that those in the discipline can potentially make.
Research Interests:
Analysis of Mauritian political system and elections 2019
Research Interests:
Op-ed on environmental concerns in Mauritius
Research Interests:
Experiment in public writing and simple techniques for pedagogy
Research Interests:
This article outlines the work we are doing to set up a decolonial social science department at the African Leadership University where I now teach
Research Interests:
“There are many experimental forms of ethnography, but here is one written by a digital native for digital natives. It is the first ethnography I am aware of that one inhabits the way one inhabits the Internet—fast paced, disjointed,... more
“There are many experimental forms of ethnography, but here is one written by a digital native for digital natives. It is the first ethnography I am aware of that one inhabits the way one inhabits the Internet—fast paced, disjointed, multi-modal, jumping scales from deeply personal to meta-commentary. Few scholars today could pull this off so effortlessly, though no doubt more and more will try. This could be, and in my mind should be, an effective model for how it is done.”
Daniel J. Hoffman, University of Washington
Daniel J. Hoffman, University of Washington
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
“There are many experimental forms of ethnography, but here is one written by a digital native for digital natives. It is the first ethnography I am aware of that one inhabits the way one inhabits the Internet—fast paced, disjointed,... more
“There are many experimental forms of ethnography, but here is one written by a digital native for digital natives. It is the first ethnography I am aware of that one inhabits the way one inhabits the Internet—fast paced, disjointed, multi-modal, jumping scales from deeply personal to meta-commentary. Few scholars today could pull this off so effortlessly, though no doubt more and more will try. This could be, and in my mind should be, an effective model for how it is done.” Daniel J. Hoffman, University of Washington