Charlotte Walker
My work on African history has taken many evolutions since beginning my graduate work. Past research on Lusophone and Francophone regions of Africa, as well as agrarian history, political history, and women's history on the continent have shaped my current focus of research.
I am currently pursuing ideas of imperialism, bureaucracy, and incorporative administration in French Equatorial Africa, looking especially at Cameroon. I am interested in the historical antecedents of bureaucratic rule and clientelism in Central Africa and how the early developments of these institutions under colonial authority remained in certain aspects of post-independence administration. I am driven by historical questions regarding governmentality, civil society and civil institutions in post-independent Africa, and the public sphere. My dissertation will examine these ideas, as well as the broader notion of power, conflict, and everyday negotiations between the individual and 'the state' in modern Africa.
I first became passionate about African history at Princeton University, where I was inspired by Professors Emmanuel Kreike and Robert Tignor (now Emeritus). Their own love of the African past and its interactions with Europe and the wider world imparted on me a great respect for the subject of history in general, and all the investigations and questions the study of it requires.
At Yale, I work with Professor Robert Harms, as well as Professors Jim Scott, Michael Gasper, and Paul Kennedy. The richness of insight and background of the advisors at Yale have made my dissertation investigations quite varied.
I intend to spend the coming year primarily in the archives of Yaoundé, Cameroon and Aix-en-Provence, France. I also intend to view missionary archives in Paris, as well as the French National Library. Coastal and inland Cameroon offer very interesting archives as well, and these will provide additional sources of historical revelation.
