The Team
Hannah Swain
Integrated Curriculum Teacher, City Academy Norwich
Hannah has been a teacher at City Academy Norwich since 2007. Her first degree was in World Art Studies at UEA, and she has a MA in Anthropology from University College London. Her specialism as a teacher is innovative curriculum development. She teaches a number of subjects with a focus on the Arts and Humanities.
Anne Haour
Reader, School of World Art Studies and Museology, University of East Anglia
Dr. Anne Haour is a Reader in the Arts and Archaeology of Africa at the Sainsbury Research Unit, based at the University of East Anglia, Norwich. A West African archeologist, Dr. Haour recently co-led an interdisciplinary research project, 'Being and Becoming Hausa,' which examined the notion of identity in the Hausa regions of southern Niger and northern Nigeria in a long-term perspective. This collaborative project, bringing together experts from Africa, Europe and the USA, showed that the boundaries of ethnicity are by no means a historical given but that ethnogenesis is rather a changeable process which includes material and cultural manifestations. These findings became the base for the 'Depicting Africa' project, where high school pupils were confronted with similar questions concerning identity, ethnicity and social boundaries.
Abubakar Sule Sani
PhD Candidate - Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia
Abubakar Sule is a Ph.D. student at the Sainsbury Research Unit, University of East Anglia, supervised by Dr. Anne Haour. As a West African archaeologist, his focus is on Nigeria’s socio-political dynamics over the last millennia, researching the Southern Bauchi State. Abubakar joined the University of East Anglia in 2009, on a fellowship granted by Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria, where he is a Lecturer. He previously worked with the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria.
Hamza Amadou
Hamza Amadou is an IT technician with a specialisation in education. He has, in the past, worked as a mathematics teacher and since 2007 has been in charge of the computing laboratory at the Amadou Kouran Daga (LAKD) in Zinder. He has been the prime point of contact at LAKD throughout our project.
Chris Wingfield
Associate Lecturer - Open University, and Honorary Research Associate - Pitt Rivers Museum
Dr. Chris Wingfield has worked as a curator, researcher, writer and lecturer for several institutions during his academic career. He was a Curator at Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery until 2006, before working for the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford from 2006 to 2009. He worked on the 'The Other Within' research project, which focused on the museum's collections from England, gaining a thorough understanding of the cultural and material manifestations of 'Englishness.' He has recently completed his Ph.D. research at the University of Birmingham. His thesis, 'The Moving Objects of the London Missionary Society: An Experiment in Symmetrical Anthropology', describes the historical genesis of the London Missionary Society Museum and its collections. He is also an Associate Lecturer at the Open University where he teaches courses on 'Understanding Global Heritage' and 'Making Sense of Things: an introduction to material culture'.
Laura de Becker
Sainsbury Research Unit and University of the Witwatersrand
Laura De Becker has recently completed her doctoral thesis at the Sainsbury Research Unit on “Remembering Rwanda: The Commemoration of the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda’s National Museums and Memorials.” Combining anthropology, museum and conflict studies, Laura researched the ways in which the Rwandan genocide is remembered in the public and official sphere within Rwanda. As her research strongly engages with notions of ethnic identity, she presented a class on the concept of ethnicity and its shifting boundaries to the students at the City Academy Norwich.
Hauwa Yakubu
Hauwa Yakubu is a lawyer, having obtained a Bachelors of Law degree (LLB) at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in Kaduna state, Nigeria in 2008. Afterwards, she completed a mandatory one year national service at the National Youth Service Corp (NYSC) as an honorary graduate assistant at the Faculty of Arts, ABU Zaria in 2009. For the project, Hauwa was involved with teaching the pupils from the City Academy Norwich about Nigerian customs, lifestyle and food, and spoke to them about aspirations and career choices.
Margit Thofner
Senior Lecturer, School of World Art Studies and Museology, University of East Anglia
Margit is a senior lecturer in the history of art at the University of East Anglia. She specialises in northern European art and architecture from the early modern period. Special interests include urban rituals, the visual articulation of specific gender roles and ecclesiastical art and architecture.
Nicholas Badcott
British Museum
Nicholas Badcott is an Education Manager at the British Museum. He works as part of the Schools and Young Audiences Team and the Africa Programme. He has studied, worked and travelled widely in Africa.
