The Harry Frank Guggenheim Welcomes Its 2025-2026 African Fellows

June 13, 2025

(NEW YORK) – The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation is pleased to announce the selection of its 2025–2026 HFG African Fellows. The twelve scholars were chosen through a rigorous peer-review process. All are doctoral candidates at African universities exploring important problems of violence related to the African continent.

Fellows are investigating topics across ten African countries, including political extremism, gender-based violence, postcolonial conflict, and counterterrorism. The fellowship provides each recipient with a research grant and support on research design, writing, and publishing. Additionally, leading scholars serve as mentors to the recipients throughout the fellowship.

In selecting the ​​recipients of the awards, the Foundation gave highest priority to research that addresses the causes, manifestations, or prevention of current problems of violence.

“This year’s cohort of African Fellows represents a diverse and dynamic set of researchers,” said HFG Senior Program Officer Nyeleti Honwana, who oversees the program. “The fellows’ projects ask important questions about the modern African state, current understandings of gendered violence, and the role of the arts in ameliorating conflict.”

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation is a leader in creating and disseminating knowledge on the nature, consequences, and reduction of violence in its many forms, including war, crime, and human aggression.

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2025–2026 Fellows and Research Topics

Aroob Alfaki (University of Khartoum, Social Anthropology) Reproduction of Inequalities or Construction of New Commonalities? Socio-Spatial and Cultural Reconfigurations of the Urban and the Rural in Sudan Between Revolution and War

Tamia Botes (University of Witwatersrand, Anthropology) Eldorado Park as Demonic Grounds: A Social History from 1960s–Present

Nonhlanhla Gumede (University of Pretoria, Social Work) Narratives of Male Perpetrators on Factors Contributing to Gender-Based Violence: A Case Study of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

Frezer Abera Hadebo (Universiteit Stellenbosch, Political Science) Gendered Dimensions of Political Extremism and Nationalism in Northern Ethiopia: A Feminist Analysis of Conflict, Identity, and Women’s Resistance in Ethiopia

Lameck Kachena (University of Cape Town, Environmental and Geographical Sciences) Migration, Socioecological and Geopolitical Trajectories along the Great Limpopo and Chimanimani Transboundary Parks

Stanley Kiswaga (Makerere University, Makerere Institute of Social Research (MISR)) Theatre for Development and the Neoliberal Divides: Rethinking “New Nation-Building” in “Post-Socialist Tanzania” 

Kgomotso Komane (University of Pretoria, Political Science and International Relations) An Intersecting Theoretical Analysis on Lesotho’s Struggle with Political Violence

Abdirizak Muhumed (University of the Witwatersrand, Political Science) Unfinished Imperialism and Lived Experiences of Occupation in Ogaden, 1994–2018

Faridah Muli (University of Nairobi, Department of Diplomacy and International Studies) Digital Technologies in Counterterrorism: Assessing US-Kenya Partnerships in Violent Extremism Prevention in the Horn of Africa

Azzeddine Tajjiou (Université Mohammed Premier, English Studies) Colonial Shadows and Post-Colonial Dreams: Exploring Corruption and Hope in Anglophone African Literature 

Rukayat Usman (University of Ibadan, Sociology/Public Policy) Violence Continuum and the Mobility Trajectories of Young Internally Displaced Persons Exiting Camps in Nigeria

Alida van der Walt (Stellenbosch University, Department of Music; Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest) Sensing Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in South Africa: Vocal Performance as Witness and Apology

For more information contact: 

Nyeleti Honwana, Senior Program Officer

info@hfg.org | 646.428.0971