Modern Africa

Dr. Josephine Nhongo-Simbanegavi is Assistant Professor in the History Department. Before arriving in Tuscaloosa she was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Columbia University in New York. She obtained her doctorate in History in 1997 from St Antony’s College, Oxford University. While at Oxford University, she was recipient of a research grant from the Beit Trust and she was also awarded the ORISHA scholarship for the year 1995-96. Her doctoral research project received financial support from the Swedish organizations, SIDA-SAREC. She also benefited from a Ford Foundation grant to the University of Zimbabwe. Apart from producing a monograph entitled For Better or Worse? Women and ZANLA in Zimbabwe’s Liberation War (2001), that study also yielded an article in the award winning book, The Historical Dimensions of Democracy and Human Rights, Vol 2, edited by renowned historian Terence Ranger.

Dr. Nhongo-Simbanegavi’s current research project on gender and international migration in Southern Africa has involved intensive archival research in South Africa, Botswana, Malawi and in Zimbabwe, her home country. At the University of Zimbabwe where she was teaching both graduate and undergraduate courses in the History Department, she also coordinated a SIDA-SAREC funded research project on the historical dimensions of human rights and democracy. As a member of the British-based Journal of Southern African Studies’ Overseas Advisory Board, Dr. Nhongo-Simbanegavi maintains a very keen interest in Southern African scholarly research.

Her teaching interests are in the field of gender and women’s history, especially in relation to Africa. She has supervised a number of undergraduate and postgraduate theses in her field. She also takes a keen interest in the contemporary history of the continent.