People: Research Faculty
![](https://cps.isr.umich.edu/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/kaskew.jpg)
Kelly Askew
Faculty Associate
Appointments
Faculty Associate, Center for Political Studies
Professor, LSA Anthropology
Professor, LSA Afroamerican & African Studies
Degree
PhD 1997 Harvard University
Other
Kelly Askew’s Curriculum Vitae (CV)
Research
Kelly Askew is Director of the African Studies Center and Professor of Anthropology and DAAS. She has worked for over two decades in Tanzania and Kenya. Her current research focuses on African postsocialism/postcommunism, poetic and performing arts, land tenure and property rights, pastoralism, and indigenous political movements.
Recent film projects include:
- Poetry in Motion: 100 Years of Zanzibar’s Nadi Ikhwan Safaa (Buda Musique) on Zanzibar’s oldest taarab orchestra
- The Chairman and the Lions (Documentary Educational Resources, 2013), which won 1st place at the ETNOFilm Festival (Croatia, 2013) and a Special Jury Award at the Zanzibar International Film Festival (Tanzania, 2013).
Contact
LSA Anthropology, University of Michigan
207-B West Hall, 1085 University Avenue, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109
Phone: 734–647–4434
Email: [email protected]
University of Michigan Online Directory listing
Selected Publications
Selected publications. Please also see Kelly Askew’s Curriculum Vitae (CV).
Askew, Kelly, and Rie Odgaard. Deeds and Misdeeds: Land Titling and Women’s Rights in Tanzania. New Left Review, 2019.
Bluwstein, Jevgeniy, et al. “Between Dependence and Deprivation: The Interlocking Nature of Land Alienation in Tanzania.” Journal of Agrarian Change, 2018, doi:10.1111/joac.12271.
Stein, Howard, et al. “The Formal Divide: Customary Rights and the Allocation of Credit to Agriculture in Tanzania.” The Journal of Development Studies, vol. 52, no. 9, 2016, pp. 1306–1319., doi:10.1080/00220388.2016.1146701.
Maganga, Faustin, et al. “Dispossession through Formalization.” Asian Journal of African Studies 40 (2016): 3-49.
Askew, Kelly. “Tanzanian Newspaper Poetry: Political Commentary in Verse.” Journal of Eastern African Studies, vol. 8, no. 3, 2014, pp. 515–537., doi:10.1080/17531055.2014.918312.
Askew, Kelly, et al. “Of Land And Legitimacy: A Tale Of Two Lawsuits.” Africa, vol. 83, no. 01, 2013, pp. 120–141., doi:10.1017/s0001972012000745.
Askew, Kelly, and M. Anne Pitcher. African Postsocialisms. Edinburgh University Press for the International African Institute, 2006.
Askew, Kelly Michelle. Performing the Nation: Swahili Music and Cultural Politics in Tanzania. University of Chicago Press, 2002.