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18 July 2023

Academics from around the world join King's as 'Global Visiting Fellows'

Ten scholars from Pakistan, India, Peru, Mexico, India, South Africa, Brazil, Morocco, Colombia have been made "Global Visiting Fellows' at King's as part of a new initiative to increase collaboration and mutual learning.

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The Faculty of Social Science & Public Policy (SSPP) at King's is hosting 10 new Global Visiting Fellows this year as part of a new scheme to support more scholars from low and middle-income countries.

The Global Visiting Fellowship initiative aims to increase opportunities for collaboration, encourage mutual learning, enhance Equality, Diversity and Inclusion, promote excellent research that has impact, share educational innovation and contribute to sharing best practice.

Since the start of the year, seven have joined the faculty for up to four months and another three are joining over the course of 2023.

As part of their applications, each demonstrated how the visiting fellowship would enable them to develop new pathways in research and teaching in their home institution that currently do not exist.

Where appropriate, they are participating in joint research projects with King’s scholars, and they are contributing to teaching and student engagement activities in areas directly related to their expertise including workshops, seminars, lectures and events. 

The 10 fellows and their research areas are:

  • Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, Uneven development and environmental change in peripheral Pakistan
  • Kalaiyarasan Arumugam, Regimes of Inequality: Muslim Marginalization under Hindu Nationalism in India
  • Ruth Iguiniz, Expanding networks for transformative gender justice and women´s health within health care systems research in Peru
  • Abril Saldana-Tejeda, Court cases and clinical trials: Genomcis and the meanings and contradictions of reproductive freedom in Mexico
  • Anindita Majumdar, Assisted Reproduction and the Conceptualization of the Biological Clock in a Cross-Cultural Perspective
  • Jen Snowball, Creative Economies in Africa: Fashion and Design in South Africa
  • Rodrigo Patto Sa Motta, The Brazilian Military, 1964-2018: fostering authoritarianism and social inequalities
  • Abdelkader Hermas, Extending L3 acquisition to understudied populations: the case of children Moroccan migrant communities in Spain.
  • Alejandro Castillejo-Cuéllar, Sound as Testimony: Senses, Creativity and the Arts of Dwelling and Survival in Colombia’s Truth Commission
  • Ivan Marowa, Memories and the Dynamics of Social Conflict in Dandawa Chiefdom, North-Western Zimbabwe: A socio-historical analysis, c1976-2018
Dr Ivan Marowa

Dr Ivan Marowa, who teaches history at the University of Zimbabwe, has been working with Professor Abiodun Alao at the African Leadership Centre (ALC) on a research project on ‘Dynamics of social conflict in North Western Zimbabwe’.

He has used his time at King’s to access recent literature and debates on social conflict, and to interact with professors and academic members of the ALC which has led to a new research paper and new analytical approaches to his work. He also found new prospects for collaboration with another global visiting fellow Professor Jen Snowball.

The academic environment at King’s has excited me a lot. The diversity has given new insights into and expanded my research focus. I have developed networks that will last my academic lifetime.”

Dr Ivan Marowa

The scheme, which was announced last summer, is specifically aimed at mid-career scholars who are 10 years or more post-PhD and come from countries or territories on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) list. These countries are eligible to receive official development assistance based on their Gross National Income per capita and the list includes the least developed countries as defined by the United Nations.

Similar to a ‘scholar in residence’ programme, each is able to join King’s for a period of up to four months with up to £15,000 to cover living, accommodation, travel and research costs.