Staff Directory

Prof Christian Williams
Position
Associate Professor
Department
Anthropology
Address
9B
ANTHROPOLOGY
R2997
UFS
Telephone
0514012363
Office
Flippie Groenewoud Building: Block B
Information

Short CV

My research examines anti-colonial nationalism since the mid-twentieth century through working ethnographically with archives. Geographically, the research’s focus is Southern Africa, especially Namibia, but it is also global in scope, extending to people around the world who engaged with Southern Africa’s liberation struggles. My doctoral thesis and first academic monograph studied camps administered by the South West Africa People’s Organisation in exile and how these camps have been remembered in and beyond Namibia. Drawing from this and related research, I have also published extensively on what it meant to be “a refugee” in Southern Africa from 1960 to 1990 and the memory politics that have ensued since the region’s liberation struggles ended and most exiles/refugees repatriated. More recently, I have written a book on the interplay between anti-colonial nationalism and Christian faith by tracing the life of Salatiel Ailonga, a Namibian refugee and the first chaplain assigned to an exiled African liberation movement. The book is due out in 2025 in James Currey’s “Religion in Transforming Africa” series. These projects have been supported by several competitive research grants, including awards from the United States Fulbright Program, South Africa’s National Research Foundation, and Germany’s Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

My teaching extends from this research. For the past decade I have taught several courses that examine how contemporary identities in Southern Africa reflect histories of colonialism and anti-colonial nationalism – histories that we have internalised, but may reshape through how we lead our lives. I also supervise honours, MA, and PhD students as they explore their own research interests under this broad theme. Many of these projects draw ethnographic and archival sources into conversation and initiate new conversations about violent colonial pasts and how we create new societies in their aftermath.

 

Publications

Monographs:

Christian Faith and Namibian Liberation: An Ethnographic Biography of Salatiel Ailonga. James Currey and University of Namibia Press, 2025.

 

National Liberation in Postcolonial Southern Africa: A Historical Ethnography of SWAPO’s Exile Camps. Cambridge University Press, 2015.

 

Remembering St. Therese. Windhoek: Out of Africa Press, 2003.

 

Other Key Publications since 2020:

“SWAPO’s 1976 Crisis and Nordic Transnational Solidarities: The Ailongas’ Detainee Letters.” In Leila Koivunen and Raita Merivirta, eds. Colonial Aspects of Finnish-Namibian Relations (1870–1990). Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2024: 171-184. DOI: https://doi.org/10.21435/sfh.28

“Liberation Movement Camps in Southern Africa.” In The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Oxford University Press, 2024. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.013.1216. 

“On South(ern) Africa’s Revolutionary Families.” Safundi, Roundtable on Paul Landau, Spear: Mandela and the Revolutionaries 25, nos. 3-4 (2024): on-line. DOI: 10.1080/17533171.2024.2412377.

 

“Defining and Aiding ‘the Namibian Refugee’: A History of the Chaplaincy to Namibians in Exile, 1974-76.” Canadian Journal of African Studies, Special Issue on African Refuge 55, no. 3 (2021): 543-561. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00083968.2020.1869049.

“Nationalism in Namibia.” Scholarly Review Essay. African Studies Review 63, no. 4 (2020): 927-937. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/asr.2020.89.

“African Refugee History.” African Studies Review, Forum on African Refugee History 63, no. 3 (2020): 560-567. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/asr.2020.76.

 

“SWAPO’s Struggle Children and Exile Home-Making: The Refugee Biography of Mawazo Nakadhilu.” African Studies Review, Forum on African Refugee History 63, no. 3 (2020): 593-615. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/asr.2019.89.

“Dissident Refugees: A History of 200 Namibians in Zambia, 1977-89.” Journal of Southern African Studies 46, no. 5 (2020): 863-879. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2020.1768685.

 

 

Courses Presented

ANTC1624: Culture: Understanding Ourselves and Others (first-year)

ANTD2614: The Anthropology of Identity (second-year)

SCSCI 2612: Social Science in Africa (second-year)

ANTU3725, Unit 2: The Anthropology of Humanitarianism (third-year)

ANTI8644: The Anthropology of Identity (honours)

ANTC6808: History, Theory and Methods in Anthropology (honours)

RMFT7900: Violence and Memory: Approaches to Studying Violent Pasts and their Aftermaths (Masters)

 

 

 

 


FACULTY CONTACT

T: +27 51 401 2240 or humanities@ufs.ac.za

Postgraduate:
Marizanne Cloete: +27 51 401 2592

Undergraduate:
Neliswa Emeni-Tientcheu: +27 51 401 2536
Phyllis Masilo: +27 51 401 9683

Humanities photo next to contact block

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful, to better understand how they are used and to tailor advertising. You can read more and make your cookie choices here. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept