Coastal Worlds

Rosabelle Boswell is an anthropologist and Professor of Ocean Cultures and Heritage at Nelson Mandela University, South Africa. She is also a member of the UK GCRF Project the One Ocean Hub. She is author of Le Malaise Creole: Ethnic Identity in Mauritius (Oxford: Berghahn), Representing Heritage in Zanzibar and Madagascar (Addis Ababa: Eclipse);  Challenges to Identifying and Managing Intangible Cultural Heritage in Mauritius, Zanzibar and Seychelles (Dakar: Codesria) and Postcolonial African Anthropologies (coedited with F. Nyamnjoh Pretoria: HSRC Press). She has also authored many articles on cultural identity and has done ethnographic fieldwork in South Africa, Mauritius, Zanzibar and Madagascar.  In 2010, she served as a research team leader for the Mauritius Truth and Justice Commission, examining the legacies of slavery.  From 2015-2019 she served as Executive Dean of Arts at Nelson Mandela University.