Clapperton Mavhunga
Assistant Professor (STS)
Clapperton Mavhunga, a Zimbabwean national, is Assistant Professor of Science, Technology and Society (STS). Clapperton researches and teaches courses on the interaction between people, science, technology, and nature/environment in Africa. His ambition is to theorize the scientific and technological basis for indigenous African knowledge and its trajectory before, during and after the European colonial moment. He has just completed his PhD in History at the University of Michigan and is a masters graduate of the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa. His doctoral thesis (his current book project) is entitled "The Mobile Workshop: Mobility, Technology, and Human-Animal Interaction in Gonarezhou (National Park), 1850-Present". It examines the role mobility (of people, technology, and nature) plays in the production of historical events. His current project entitled "Traditional Knowledge of African Villagers" is a collaborative applied research initiative with Dr. Simon Kang’a, an associate research scientist in genetics and genomics at the NYU Langone School of Medicine). They are working with the people of Chief Makuleke’s community in South Africa to establish an indigenous technology museum, village-based tourism, and centers of indigenous knowledge-based innovations producing cost-efficient, culturally grounded solutions to the twin problem of negative climate change and poverty in the transLimpopo basin. Clapperton is the author of several articles and book chapters on indigenous knowledge, western science and technology (specifically guns), and wildlife in Southern and East African society.
