RESEARCH OUTPUT

Publications & Talks

Books, articles, datasets, teaching documentation, public writing, and creative collaborations, with talks and conference presentations below. Links go to open access versions where available, or to the publisher/venue page.

Book

2024
Forged in Genocide: Migrant Workers Shaping Colonial Capitalism in Namibia, 1890–1925
De Gruyter Oldenbourg — Open Access

Peer-Reviewed Articles

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Leveraging Open Source LLMs for Historical Databases of Agricultural Science Research IN PEER REVIEW
Journal of Digital History (co-author)
—
How Ghana Became a Rice Eating Nation: Centring Consumer Preferences in a Changing Society, 1972–2001 IN PREPARATION
Manuscript in revision
2021
From Labour Elites to Garveyites: West African Migrant Labour in Namibia, 1892–1925
Journal of Southern African Studies, 47(1) — Open Access
2021
Balancing the Scales: Re-Centring Labour and Labourers in Namibian History
Journal of Southern African Studies (co-author)

Edited Volumes

2021
Special Edition on Namibian Labour History
Journal of Southern African Studies, 47(1) (co-editor)

Dataset

2024
Namibian Worker Database
edoc-Server, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin · DOI: 10.18452/28347 · CC BY 4.0
Explore this dataset interactively via the research assistant tool on this site.

Teaching & Open Educational Resources

2020–
Southern African Perspectives
Student-based research project and public website, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
An ongoing public-facing site presenting student research on colonial archives and Southern African history, grown out of the "Little Research Value?" course below. A core, continuing part of my teaching and public-history work.
2024
"Little Research Value?": Seeking to Understand Migrant Labour's Past and How It Affects the Present
Insel der Forschung, Universität Hamburg — HUL Good-Practice documentation
2019
Microsoft Power BI Desktop: A Free and User-Friendly Software Programme for Data Visualisations in the Social Sciences
Historia: Journal of the Historical Association of South Africa

Book Reviews

2025
Review of Empire's Violent End
ed. Thijs Brocades Zaalberg & Bart Luttikhuis, Comparativ
2020
Review of Violence as Usual
by Marie Muschalek, H-Soz-Kult

Public Writing & Media

2021
Historical Writing and the Global Turn: Perspectives from a Historian of Africa
Esboços: Histórias em Contextos Globais
Interview format.
2018
A shift in post-colonial Namibian-German relations or the status quo?
The Namibian
2018
Italian workers in colonial Namibia, 1904 to 1925
The Namibian
2017
On the Other Side of the Camera: Contract Laborers in Namibia from 1897–1920
Visual History. Institutions and Media of Visual Memory
BEYOND ACADEMIA

Creative & Public Collaborations

2025
Tuli Mekondjo — Ongopolo Foroman: Phase I
Villa Romana Collection, Archive Books Berlin
Contributor (non-poetry text). A booklet on the work of Namibian artist Tuli Mekondjo (2023 Villa Romana Fellow), created together with Elena Agudio and poet Prince Marenga. Funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Deutsche Bank Stiftung, and Bao Stiftung.
This text is set to accompany related Ongopolo Foroman artworks at the Sharjah Biennale 17 (2027), curated by Paula Nascimento. FORTHCOMING
2020
Diamonds or Self-Determination? — South West African Nationalism
The Great War (YouTube), Season 7, Episode 3 — Researcher & Scriptwriter

Selected Talks & Conferences

2026
Featured Speaker, "Labour, Migration and Genocide: A Social History of Railway Construction in Colonial Namibia under German Rule" — After Restitution. Museums as Archives for New African Histories, University of Bern
2026
Panelist, "Extractive Economies: Labor and Mining" — Interdisciplinary Discussions about Sites and Modes of Extraction in Namibia Workshop, 15 July 2026, Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies (FRIAS)
2025
Co-organiser, "Ideal Agriculture and its Afro-Asian Realities" workshop, Universität Zürich
2025
Book launch, Forged in Genocide, Universität Zürich
2025
"The Human Infrastructure of the Namibian War..." — Research Seminar 'African History', Universität Basel
2024
Co-organiser, "Crops and Politics between Africa and Asia" workshop, Wageningen University
2024
"How Ghana Became a Rice Nation..." — IHR Food History Seminar, University of London
2023
"Before Ponzi, There was Zarossi..." — Atlantic Crossings Workshop
2023
"The Pan-Africanism of Jollof Rice," Historical Seminar, Universität Bern
2023
"Namibian Labor Empire..." Historisches Seminar, Universität Freiburg
2022
"Centring Ovambo Labourers in Colonial Namibian History under German Rule..." — African Studies Association Germany (VAD) Conference
2021
"Namibian Migrant Labor Empire, 1892–1925," Swiss African History Day, Basel
2021
"Fear and Labor in the Namib..." — Colonial Capitalism in Action (Online)
2020
Co-organiser, Internationalism in the (Long) 20th Century Workshop
2020
"Construction Sites as Colonial Contact Zones..." — European University Institute, Florence
2020
"Southern African Perspectives, A Student-Based Research Project" — 7th Namibia Research Day, Basel
2019
"Global Migrant Labor in Namibia 1894–1925," Re:work Summer School, Addis Ababa