Ph. D., University of Michigan
African and South Asian History and Anthropology
| 239 Meserve | T: (617) 373-4438 | E: k.luongo@neu.edu |
Katherine A. Luongo studies legal systems in colonial and contemporary Africa. She is particularly interested in the intersection of the occult and politics in Africa. Her dissertation, “Conflicting Codes and Contested Justice: Witchcraft and the State in Kenya,” examines how crimes related to Africans beliefs in witchcraft challenged the ability of the state to establish law and order and how such crimes provided a space in which to debate the broader question of what made British justice in the African empire. Trained in anthropology and history, Dr. Luongo developed an ethnography of Kamba witchcraft as part of her dissertation fieldwork.
Dr. Luongo has published on topics such as the Mau Mau rebellion, the Kenya National Archives, and the suspicious death of a Kenya MP. A forthcoming article addresses the legal genealogy of the categories of “provocation” and “malice aforethought” in Kenyan jurisprudence (Cahiers d’ études africaines, 2008). An essay, “Domestic Dramas and Occult Acts: Witchcraft and Violence in the Arena of the Intimate,” will appear in a volume on domestic violence in Africa edited by Emily Burrill, Richard Roberts, and Elizabeth Thornberry. Additional works in progress include an article on a witch-murder in 1930s Gambia and an essay on press coverage of witchcraft-related violence in contemporary Kenya.
She teaches courses in African history, South Asian history, and anthro-history.