Undergraduate Research Continues to Flourish in the Department of African Studies

Darline Washington is currently conducting her undergraduate research project under the guidance of Dr. Flordeliz T. Bugarin, Associate Professor in the Department of African Studies.  Her research is centered on the Maasai people of Kenya and Tanzania in East Africa, with a focus on the impacts of forced removals and informal settlements resulting from governmental agendas, environmental policies, and the creation of game parks.

Sam Anthony is also engaged in directed undergraduate research in the same department under the mentorship of Dr. Bugarin.  In his own words, he shares his research interests:

“My Research focuses on the significance of African(a) intellectual autonomy and the interrogations of western disciplinarity and interdisciplinarity. What particularly interests me is the ability for African beings to develop intellectual space for engaging the world on their own terms of legitimation. The implications this has for disciplinarity from a Western tradition is remarkable in our modern moment. Disciplinarity historically reaffirms legitimized scientific processes and knowledge. Radical African(a) intellectual foundations in this vein have always been discredited. Yet, from this African(a) intellectuals have continued to "break the chains" that link African ideas to the West. I believe my research is unique because it calls for a continued momentum of African(a) intellectual work beyond notions of disciplinarity and to imagine what intellectual knowledge production that stands the test of "truth and propriety" can look like from alternative cultural frames of reference.”