Dr David Pratten
University Lecturer
Teaching and research interests
Ethnography of West Africa, especially Nigeria ; history and anthropology; youth, violence and vigilantism.
Dr Pratten's ethnography is based on a decade of engagement with Annang villagers in south-eastern Nigeria. The themes of his research concern historical memory and relations between state and society. He has been developing this focus in two related projects. First, he has a produced a multi-stranded approach to the study of the multiple impacts and responses called into being by colonial rule in Nigeria. The focus of this work is an historical ethnography of the events surrounding a series of mysterious deaths in south-eastern Nigeria during the late 1940s which is shortly to be published by the International African Institute. Second, his current research builds on this study and examines youth, democracy and disorder in post-colonial Nigeria. In its focus on the practice of vigilantism and the role of a new masquerade cult, it explores the politically ambiguous social mechanisms through which young people articulate claims and rights and engage with the postcolonial state.
For more information please visit the African Studies Centre.
Publications
For a list of publications, please click here.