University Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research Senior Researcher South Africa
Description of Work:
Born in Cameroon in 1957 on the eve of independence, Achille Mbembe is one of the foremost postcolonial theorists working on African issues today.

Mbeme earned a Ph.D. in History in 1989 at the Sorbonne in Paris. He followed that with a D.E.A. in political Science at the Institut d’Études Politiques in the same city. Hethen moved to the United States to quick establish himself as expert in the field, teaching History at Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania. In between those two posts, he worked as a Senior Research Fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington, D.C. He continued his think tank work as the Executive Director of the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (Codesria) in Dakar, Senegal, from 1996 to 2000. He has published a number of books and articles on African politics and history. His most well-known and latest book is entitled On the Postcolony. This groundbreaking multi-disciplinary approach to questions all assumptions and revisions the idea of power in Africa.

He is now a research professor in history and politics at the University of the Witwatersrand and a senior researcher at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research in Johannesburg.