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Rosabelle Boswell

SARCHI Ocean Cultures and Heritage, Nelson Mandela University

Rosabelle Boswell is a SARCHI (South African Research Chair) Ocean Cultures and Heritage. A social anthropologist, she has a PhD from the Free University of Amsterdam and an MA from the University of Cape Town. Her current field research considers coastal cultural heritage, especially intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in five African countries: South Africa, Namibia, (Lamu) Kenya, Mozambique and Zanzibar, Tanzania. She is also conducting Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) funded research on coastal resilience in Seychelles, Kenya and South Africa. Her research partners include IORA and the NRF Community of Practice (CoP) Global Ocean Accounts Framework. She has contributed as Research Program (RP) leader on cultural heritage for the UKRI One Ocean Hub project from 2020-2023. In 2023, she was invited to the Rockefeller Foundation in Bellagio, Italy to work on her latest manuscript concerning African heritage. Rosabelle has published three poetry anthologies since 2019 and lead edited the Palgrave, Macmillan book entitled: The Palgrave Handbook on Blue Heritage (2022).

Experience

  • 2021–present
    SARCHI Ocean Cultures and Heritage, Nelson Mandela University
  • 2020–2021
    Professor of Ocean Cultures and Heritage, Nelson Mandela University
  • 2015–2019
    Executive Dean of Arts, Nelson Mandela University

Education

  • 2003 
    Vrije Universiteit, PhD Anthropology

Grants and Contracts

  • 2020
    One Ocean Hub
    Role:
    Co-Investigator
    Funding Source:
    UK GCRF
  • 2020
    Incentive Fund Rated Researchers
    Role:
    Principal Researcher
    Funding Source:
    National Research Foundation
  • 2014
    Role:
    Executive Dean of Arts
    Funding Source:
    National Research Foundation