Dr. Ashforth is currently Professor of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, having previously held teaching and research posts at, amongst other places, Northwestern University, City University of New York, and the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. In 2019 he was appointed the Nelson Mandela Visiting Professor in the Department of Political and International Studies at Rhodes University in South Africa.
Dr. Ashforth holds the degrees of Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy in Politics from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar (Australia-at-Large, 1979). Since 1981 he has conducted extensive research in South Africa, as well as in Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe. His primary research field has been South Africa, where he has conducted extensive research into issues of insecurity in everyday life contexts. In the 1990s, Dr. Ashforth conducted many years of ethnographic fieldwork in the black township of Soweto studying the social dynamics of the transition to democracy. He has published four books, three on South Africa and one on Malawi. In 2005 my book Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa won the Herskovits Prize for the best book on Africa published in that year.
Deportees/criminal deportees, Disability, Ethnic discrimination or persecution, Gang-related violence/non-state actors, Gender-based violence/domestic violence, Healthcare access/health systems capacity, HIV/AIDS, LGBTQ, Likelihood of destitution or homelessness, Mental illness, Political persecution, Prison condition, Religious discrimination or persecution, Government/state actor persecution, Risk of retaliation, Safe Internal relocation, Sexual abuse/assault, Specialized medical services, Sufficiency of protection, Trafficking, Tribal discrimination or persecution, Violence against children/child abuse, Witchcraft accusations
10+ years experience writing reports for U.K. and U.S. cases. 50+ cases for countries including Botswana, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, and Zimbabwe.
The Trials of Mrs. K.: Seeking Justice in a World of Witches (Chicago University Press, 2018); Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa (Chicago University Press, 2005); Madumo, a Man Bewitched (Chicago University Press, 2000); The Politics of Official Discourse in Twentieth Century South Africa (Oxford University Press, 1990).