Dan Hammett's Research Interests

My research interests are in the social and political geographies of South Africa, with particular emphasis on health care, education, identity, race, respect, and citizenship.

Post-Graduate Research

My first research in South Africa considered the involvement of Cuban health care workers in South African health care delivery. This research included a month-long trip in 2003 to Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, and rural KwaZulu Natal to visit hospitals and to interview academics and Cuban and South African doctors involved with the bi-lateral agreement. This work led to two publications. For details of these publications please see my Publications page: Publications

In October 2003 I began work on my PhD with my supervisors Alan Barnard (Anthropology) and Kenneth King (African Studies and Education). This work used education as a site within which to consider questions of identity and belonging in the post-apartheid state. I focused on teachers and students at three schools in Cape Town, spending 12 months considering a series of questions:

·       how did these teachers and students negotiate the imposed racial categories of apartheid?

·       how did they negotiate their identities in relation to these categories in the post-apartheid period?

·       how was the social standing of the teaching profession changing over time?

·       and how did different conceptions of respect inform these identity claims?

My thinking on these questions was framed by close reading of post-colonial texts and three months working with Dan Yon at York University, Toronto. My thesis draws together these theoretical inputs and empirical data to argue that ‘coloured’ teachers and students in Cape Town assert identity claims that are elusive, fluid and frequently ambiguous.

I submitted my thesis, entitled ‘Constructing Ambiguous Identities: Negotiating Race, Respect, and Social Change in ‘Coloured’ Schools in Cape Town, South Africa in 2007. Two journal articles have been published from this work; one concerning methodological challenges of conducting research across cultural boundaries, the other detailing the changing identity claims of teachers in Cape Town as they negotiate the evolving socio-political context. For details of these publications please see my Publications page: Publications

Post-Doctoral Research

My post-doctoral work focuses on developing and publishing my PhD findings.

The first article being developed considers how perceptions of exclusion from government policies of redress can complicate the everyday experience of citizenship. Drawing on data from students and teachers, I argue that tensions between racially-framed equity policies are in tension with attempts to create a ‘non-racial’ citizenry. The experience of these tensions can lead, in some communities, to a feeling of exclusion from citizen rights and the benefits of democracy.

The second article considers how practices of consumption amongst ‘coloured’ students draw on global cultural flows to create and assert identities in reference to multiple local cultural topographies of wealth. I argue that these flows are given new meanings in the practice of consumption, which are then used to compete for social position.

Digital Archive of African Political Ephemera

Coordinated by Sara Rich-Dorman, this project seeks to archive political ephemera (political posters, clothing, political graffiti, and other material objects) from the African continent. We hope that this archive will record important, if fleeting, moments in the political history and public life of African states.

The DAAPE website: Digital Archive of African Political Ephemera