Contact Information
707 S Mathew Avenue
707 S Mathews
M/C 168
Urbana, IL 61801
Program
Biography
Kevin Wamalwa is a cultural anthropologist and scholar of African cultural studies. He studies resource-based conflict and post-violence memory in Africa. His work highlights how small-scale conflicts and those involving marginalized communities provide a vantage point for understanding people’s agency in how they remember and talk about trauma, reconcile, and heal without state mediation. Kevin is also a passionate Swahili poet, educator, translator, and scholar.
Research Interests
Research interests
Memory studies; Social and resource conflicts; Language ideology; Swahili studies
Education
Ph.D., Cultural Anthropology and African Cultural Studies, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2024
M.A., Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2022
M.A., African Languages and Literature, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2015
B.Ed., University of Nairobi, Kenya
Courses Taught
selected publications
Wamalwa, Kevin. 2021. “The Problem of (Un)Belonging: Memory, Land Conflict, and Environmental Degradation in Mt. Elgon, Kenya.” Ecocene: Cappadocia Journal of Environmental Humanities 2 (1): 57–67. https://doi.org/10.46863/ecocene.22.
Stambach, Amy, and Kevin Wamalwa. 2018. “Students’ Reparticularization of Chinese Language and Culture at the University of Rwanda Confucius Institute.” Signs and Society 6 (2): 332–48. https://doi.org/10.1086/696798.
creative works
Wamalwa. "Usena wa Jana." (2025--A Swahili novel), African Ink Publishers, in press.
Wamalwa (2015) Miale ya Ushairi: Shule za Upili na Vyuo. (A study guide on Swahili poetry for high schools and middle-level colleges.). Nairobi. East Africa Educational Publishers
Wamalwa (2011) “Nimerudi Tena” (I have Returned) in Kunani Marekani na Hadithi Nyingine (What is there in America and other stories)? (Iribemwangi, ed.).