I am a PhD candidate in African History at Emory University. My research examines how individuals and communities navigated ambiguous systems of authority in colonial Botswana and Lesotho during the first half of the 20th century. While the colonial administration provided a loose and changing formal set of rules, people framed their conflicts within a series of overlapping ambits of power, institutional and extra-institutional channels, and networks of alliances that went beyond colonial boundaries. My dissertation explores how people, from local rulers to dissidents, enslaved people, and refugees, made political and economic claims under these conditions.

I have a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and International Relations from the Center for Research and Teaching in Economics CIDE (Mexico), and an MA in African Studies from Yale University.