Speaker Series: Kathryn Takabvirwa

To register, contact Sophie Kofman at skofman@abfn.org. 

Dr. Kathryn Takabvirwa is a social and cultural anthropologist. Her research centers on policing, citizenship, migration and mobility, governance, and the state in Southern Africa. She is interested in the ways people reconcile themselves to the idea of the state and of citizenship in light of histories of state violence. She is currently working on a book manuscript on police roadblocks in Zimbabwe. The ethnography presents a close examination of encounters between the police and those they stopped along Zimbabwe’s roads between 2012 and 2017, the period during which official police roadblocks proliferated throughout the country. Tentatively titled How to Ask for a Bribe, the book also explores experiences of commuting, as well as the policing of street vendors.