Professor Catherine Dolan

Professor Catherine Dolan is an Associate Fellow at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford.

An anthropologist by profession, I’ve directed research programmes on the moral economies of global capitalisms in relation to food, labour, informal economies, and gender.

My work has straddled more than ten African countries, with an emphasis on eastern Africa.

I am committed to understanding and challenging how our economic and social lives are reconfigured and threatened by climate change, socioeconomic inequalities, and political interests, with the aim of thinking about how we might move towards a more liveable world. My current research focuses on precarity, entrepreneurialism, and inclusion in African cities.

I have published widely in anthropology and critical development studies. am co-editor of the book series, ‘Business, Finance & International Development’ at Bristol University Press, as well as of The Anthropology of Corporate Social Responsibility; Digital Food Activism; and Ethical Sourcing in the Global Food System.

I am a professor in the Department of Anthropology at SOAS, where I direct the MA in Global Futures and Sustainability. I serve on the board of the Food Studies Centre, SOAS and am on the Steering Committee of the Anthropology of Policy and Practice at the Royal Anthropological Institute. I am co-founder of the Oxford University Food Governance Group, which researches the politics and practices of food governance. I am also co-founder of Centre for New Economies of Development, a network of anthropologists that seeks to establish critical frameworks for research on market-based development.

I am a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and the Royal Anthropological Institute (RAI), and over the years have held fellowships with Fulbright; the Social Science Research Council; the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; the International Center for Research on Women; Boston University’s Center for African Studies; and Oxford University’s James Martin Institute.