In 1992 Dr Mary Kinyanjui, a Senior Research Fellow at IDS, returned to Kenya after obtaining her PhD in Geography from Cambridge University.

The scholar’s experiences in two Kenyan universities will be the gist of her seminar, “Towards an African Economic Geography: Lesson Learned from Development Studies Research.” 

In her presentation, Dr Kinyanjui will outline the reasons and challenges she experienced in the conceptualization of an African economic geography. The challenges include African positioning in the global economy and cultures, African images in television and books, academicism, and language. 

“The need for an African economic geography was prompted by my lived experience in a developing country and the contradictions with African epistemology in textbooks, magazines and television as well as the unfair terms of trade and global inequalities. To come up with the new African economic geography I developed different methods of gathering data,” the researcher states in the presentation abstract.  

The presentation, which is part of the IDS bi-monthly seminar series, will take place at the University of Nairobi Towers on November 21, 2019, from 2pm. The seminars are coordinated by Dr Radha Upadhyaya, a Research Fellow at IDS.