Chapurukha M. Kusimba

Chapurukha Makokha Kusimba is a Kenyan–American anthropologist and archaeologist. His research focuses on Indian Ocean trade, global commerce and inequality, the history of science and technology in Africa, and the archaeology of slavery and the African diaspora. He is Professor of Anthropology at the University of South Florida.

Education

Kusimba earned a B.Ed. in history and Swahili from Kenyatta University in 1986. He received an M.A. (1989) and Ph.D. (1993) in anthropology from Bryn Mawr College.

Career

From 1989 to 1993, Kusimba worked as a research scientist in the Division of Archaeology at the National Museums of Kenya. In 1994 he joined the University of Illinois Chicago as assistant professor of anthropology and assistant curator of African archaeology and ethnology at the Field Museum of Natural History. He was promoted to associate professor and associate curator in 1999, and later professor and curator in 2005. He remained at Illinois and the Field Museum until 2013.

Between 2013 and 2020, he was professor of anthropology at American University in Washington, D.C. In 2020 he joined the University of South Florida as professor of anthropology.

Books

• 2024 – Swahili Worlds in Globalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• 2020 – China and East Africa: Ancient Ties, Contemporary Flows (co-edited with Tiequan Zhu and Purity Kiura). Lanham: Lexington Books.
• 2004 – Unwrapping a Little-Known Textile Tradition: The Field Museum’s Madagascar Textile Collection (co-edited with J. Claire Odland and B. Bronson). Los Angeles: Fowler Museum Cultural History Publications.
• 2003 – East African Archaeology: Foragers, Potters, Smiths, and Traders (co-edited with S. B. Kusimba). Philadelphia: University Museum of Pennsylvania.
• 1999 – The Rise and Fall of Swahili States. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.

Honors

• 2024 – Outstanding Research Achievement Award, University of South Florida
• 2018 – Elected Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2011–2012 – Senior J. W. Fulbright Fellowship to Kenya (Pwani University)
• 2002–2003 – J. William Fulbright Teaching Fellowship to the Czech Republic

References