Dr Njabulo Chipangura

Biography
Dr. Njabulo Chipangura is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology with an interest in empirical ways by which museum practices can be decolonised through epistemic and aesthetic disobedience benchmarked by undoing earlier ways of knowledge production particularly looking at African collections and their representations. He has a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, an MA in Museums and Heritage Studies, from the University of the Western Cape, South Africa and a BA Hons in Archaeology , Cultural Heritage and Museum Studies from Midlands State University, Zimbabwe. Njabu has published several research papers that looks at ongoing debates around the coloniality of museums and associated knowledge production and representation practices, to imagine a decolonised museum in Africa. His first co-written book entitled Museums as Agents for Social Change: Collaborative Programmes at the Mutare Museum was published by Routledge in April 2021. Njabu sits on the editorial board of Museum International a widely read journal on museum practices and theory which is published Routledge in collaboration with the International Council of Museums (ICOM). He is also a managing editor on Museum and Society published by University of Leicester Open Journals. Njabu is currently working on a co-edited volume entitled The Museologies of Africa: Rethinking African Museums, Community Inclusion, Living Cultures and Decolonisation which will be published by Routledge in 2026.
Research Interests
My current research interest centres around engaging with the binary of ordering and disordering knowledge within ethnographic museums by critically questioning colonial practices of dispossessing, collecting and containing dislocated ethnographic objects from Africa. I am interested in tracing the mobility of cultural objects from Africa and how they were collected from their original contexts as a result of colonial violence finding their way into European ethnographic museums. I look at how European colonialism was an epistemic project bound up with Enlightenment notions of reason, progress, and modernity, which imagined Europe as the global site of scientific knowledge and set about creating the non-Western world as its mirror. Colonial knowledges produced colonial practices of ordering, which drew upon Linnaean classification, and informed scientific racism, educational curricula, and legal and administrative frameworks. Ethnographic museums in the global north took shape as global repositories of these extracted objects, sites of ordering them according to colonial knowledge, and spaces where the public could acquire knowledge of (and control over) colonised peoples and cultures. Methodologically, in line with decolonial approaches to knowledge production - I deploy practice in co-production, and co-curation and in building active relationships with, and taking guidance from diaspora and originating communities. My approach to decolonisation is premised on collaborative provenance research and co-curating exhibitions with diaspora African community members. As such, I am currently undertaking biographical research on a collection of cultural heritage objects at Manchester Museum that came from Namibia, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, South Africa, and Zambia collected by Sir Henry Wellcome in the early 20th C. The objects were distributed by Wellcome Medical History Museum in 1949 and include knives, arrows, mbira, headrests, drums, beaded gourds, marimba, baskets, mortar and pestles, clay pots, sweeping brooms, axes, snuff boxes and beaded baskets. Elsewhere, although other researches have been grappling with decolonising the museum, which has become synonymous with the restitution of objects – my own approach is different, as I posit that restitution is only a small area where the museum needs to be severed from its colonial ties. Instead ethnographic museums must also rethink the colonial knowledges that led them to collect particular objects and to order them in particular ways.
I have carried out collaborative provenance research with a colleague at Ditsong Cultural Museum, Pretoria, South Africa in which we looked at traditional Zulu beads at Manchester Museum collection. The first part of the research saw Motsane Seabela (Curator of Anthropology at Ditsong Cultural Museum) coming to Manchester Museum in 2022 and we analysed 93 pieces of beads in the living cultures collection. This collection was appropriated from source communities in KwaZulu Natal by different collectors between 1887 - 1930’s and deposited in the museum devoid of context nor meaningful biographies. During the second part of the research, we travelled to Nongoma in KwaZulu Natal for ethnographic research with source communities in August 2022. We were able engage different communities who are still making and using similar beads and by so doing – the spiritual, ceremonial and ritual stories were recorded with a view of filling in absent biographies. A co-curated exhibition was developed as an outcome of this fieldwork which is now showcasing a complete biographical story of the beadwork at Manchester Museum. Meanwhile, together with colleagues from Kenya and Uganda - we are currently conducting collaborative object biography research on collections with colonial contexts from East Africa that are at Manchester Museum.
I am also interested in the praxis of decolonising museum materialities by reconfiguring colonial knowledges that led to the collecting of humans remains and their subsequent classification in accordance with tropes of race. I have previously worked at Manchester Museum which part of the University of Manchester as a Curator of Anthropology for 3 years and at the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe (NMMZ) as a curator of archaeology and head of department for 11 years. At NMMZ during this period of my curatorial service I was involved in the Accession Africa Project which was provenance research project of objects that came from Africa and are found in European museums. This collaborative research project was between museums in Namibia, Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe in cooperation with museums in Sweden, Germany, Finland and Switzerland. The other major curatorial project that I undertook working for NMMZ was premised on the discursive analysis of ethnographic objects which were collected and placed in museums during Zimbabwe’s colonial period (1890-1980) devoid of their social biographies. Thus, between 2014- 2016 - I led a team in putting up a new permanent exhibition at Mutare Museum focusing on the traditional aspects of the Eastern Shona people which were conspicuously absent ever since this museum opened in 1964. The production of this exhibition was made possible by a grant that was provided by the Beit Trust which enabled us to carry a 4 months’ ethnographic research towards the making of this new display. In developing this exhibition – we used an inclusive, participative and experiential approach which was undergird by collaborations between museum curators and the community. Thus, there was shared authority in knowledge production and exhibition development.
My other research draws from an ongoing anthropological study called “Nursing Nostalgia: Archival Traces and the Social Lives of Zimbabweans." This is a collaborative research with colleagues at Hull University, University of Oxford and the National Museums and Monuments of Zimbabwe. This research explores embodied archival practice and traces of material that constitute migrant life specifically, through Zimbabwean nurses in the UK, whose mobilities are shaped by their work and whose lives serve as sites of negotiating black life and hostility. Together we are examining how objects they carry reflect their ideas and experiences of return, and the circulation of the material and non-material in this process. Materiality - in the sense of objects that people carry, is often not considered an important aspect of mobilities in migrant stories. These objects represent how migrants wish to shape their memories of ‘home’; creating a sense in which home is extended and continued in the elsewhere, anchoring and bridging the duality of being here while simultaneously being rooted there. Therefore, we deliberately focus on materials – not as a substitute for human activity but to emphasise ways in which objects extend human activities which enables an examination of how objects are embed in experiences and how they provoke particular responses.
Research Projects
Book Chapter
Peer Reviewed Journal
Year | Publication | |
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2025 | Njabulo Chipangura and Motsane G. Seabela (2025) 'Community Collaborations and Social Biographies of Museum Collections from Colonial Contexts: Meanings of Zulu Beadwork'. Museum Studies, 12 . [DOI] | |
2025 | Njabulo Chipangura et.al (2025) 'Bring the Objects out of the Basement! The Wellcome African Collection at Manchester Museum'. African Arts, 58 (1). | |
2025 | Njabulo Chipangura, Patricia Magodyo Chipangura, Jesmael Mataga and Farai Chabata (2025) 'Truth telling as a form of decolonial care: Stories from a collaborative object biography research with the Ndau community of Eastern Zimbabwe'. Routledge, . [DOI] | |
2024 | Njabulo Chipangura (2024) 'Peer Review Report For: Reconceptualizing museum decolonization: A proposal for the repatriation of agency'. Routledge, . https://doi.org/10.21956/routledgeopenres.19341.r28264 | |
2024 | Robert T. Nyamushosho and Njabulo Chipangura (2024) 'Mixed memories: rethinking the loss and transformation of the colonial heritage archive in the aftermath of the Jagger Library inferno and Rhodes Must Fall Movement'. Social Dynamics, . https://doi.org/10.1080/02533952.2024.2320575 | |
2024 | Njabulo Chipangura (2024) 'Decolonising the archaeology of indigenous artisanal gold mining in Eastern Zimbabwe'. Routledge, . https://doi.org/10.1080/20518196.2023.2289316 | |
2024 | Njabulo Chipangura (2024) 'The Benin Tusk and Zulu Beadwork: Practicing Decolonial Work at Manchester Museum through shared authority'. Museum Anthropology, . http://doi.org/10.1111/muan.12279 | |
2021 | Nyamushosho Robert, Chipangura Njabulo, Pasipanodya, Takudzwa, Chirikure Shadreck and Manyanga Munyaradzi (2021) 'Nyanga pottery and the Manyika ethnohistory: towards a decolonised archaeology of the Nyanga agricultural complex'. Heliyon, . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2021.e06609 | |
2020 | Njabulo Chipangura (2020) 'Contested archaeological approaches to mass graves exhumations'. Museum Management and Curatorship, . https://doi.org/10.1080/15740773.2020.1729614 | |
2020 | Njabulo Chipangura (2020) 'Co‐curation and New Museology in Reorganizing the Beit Gallery at the Mutare Museum, Eastern Zimbabwe'. Wiley interdisciplinary reviews. RNA, . https://doi.org/10.1111/cura.12375 | |
2020 | Njabulo Chipangura (2020) 'The Politicisation of Liberation-Struggle Exhumations in Eastern Zimbabwe: Spiritual Evocation, Patriotism and Professionalism'. Journal of Southern African Studies, . https://doi.org/10.1080/03057070.2020.1807102 | |
2020 | Njabulo Chipangura and Patricia Chipangura (2020) 'Community museums and rethinking the colonial frame of national museums in Zimbabwe.”'. Museum Management and Curatorship, . https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2019.1683882 | |
2020 | Njabulo Chipangura (2020) 'Critical representations of Southern African Inequality: Transcending outmoded exhibition and museum politics.”'. Development Southern Africa, . https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835X.2019.1709046 | |
2019 | Njabulo Chipangura (2019) '“Living site, living values: the Matendera festival as practice in community conservation and presentation'. International Journal of Intangible Heritage, . | |
2019 | Njabulo Chipangura (2019) 'Contemporary Gold Mining in Eastern Zimbabwe: Archaeological, Ethnographic and Historical Characteristics'. Scopus, . https://doi.org/10.5334/joad.56 | |
2019 | Njabulo Chipangura (2019) 'Towards the decriminalisation of artisanal gold mining in Eastern Zimbabwe'. Extractive Industries and Society, . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2018.09.003 | |
2019 | Njabulo Chipangura (2019) '“We are one big happy family: The Social Organisation of Artisanal Gold Mining in Eastern Zimbabwe'. Extractive Industries and Society, . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2019.08.001 | |
2019 | Njabulo Chipangura (2019) 'Digital technology: The panacea for improving visitor experience, audience growth'. Museum International, . [DOI] | |
2019 | Njabulo Chipangura (2019) ': The Wealth Beneath Our Feet Exhibition: An Adult Education Practice at Mutare Museum, Eastern Zimbabwe'. Canadian Journal of Education, . | |
2019 | Njabulo Chipangura, Pauline Chiripanhura and Stanley Nyamagodo (2019) 'Policy formulation and collaborative management: The Case of Ziwa Site, Eastern Zimbabwe'. Museum International, . https://doi.org/10.1111/muse.12177 | |
2019 | Njabulo Chipangura (2019) 'The archaeology of contemporary artisanal gold mining at Mutanda Site, Eastern Zimbabwe.”'. Routledge, . https://doi.org/10.1080/20518196.2019.1611184 | |
2018 | Njabulo Chipangura (2018) 'Working with Contested Ethnographic Collections to Change ‘Old Museum’ Perspectives: Mutare Museum, Eastern Zimbabwe, 2015- 2017'. Annual Review of Anthropology, . https://doi.org/10.57225/martor.2018.23.04 | |
2016 | Njabulo Chipangura (2016) 'The love and hate relationship of colonial heritage; exploring changes of the “heritage archive” in Zimbabwe'. Scopus, . https://doi.org/10.33972/jhs.133 | |
2015 | Njabulo Chipnagura and Chidochashe Mandizvo (2015) 'Static Collections and Experiential Connections at Mutare Museum'. Museum International, . [DOI] | |
2025 | Njabulo Chipangura; Charalampos Chaitas; Nana Meparishvilli (2025) 'Expanding museums’ horizons through partnerships and collaboration'. Museum International, 76 (303-304). [DOI] |
Book Review
Year | Publication | |
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2024 | Njabulo Chipangura (2024) The Anti-Colonial Museum: Reclaiming our colonial heritage By Bruno Brulon Soares. [Book Review] [DOI] | |
2020 | Njabulo Chipangura (2020) Museum cooperation between Africa and Europe: A new field for museum studies. [Book Review] https://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2020.1761589 |
Newspaper Articles
Professional Associations
Teaching Interests
In line with decolonial pedagogy - I am interested in looking at how ethnographic museums can reconfigure colonial knowledges that led them to collect secret, sacred and ceremonial heritage objects, and ordering these within disciplinary configurations of anthropology and ethnology. By way of facilitating such dialogues with students – I am interested in convening critical thinking on how museums are taking on new roles as brokers of culture with a shift of focus from conservation of material culture towards becoming forums for negotiating knowledge. I have taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Anthropology , Archaeology , Museum Ethnography and Heritage Studies at various universities in South Africa and Zimbabwe. At the University of Manchester - I contributed to teaching in Social Anthropology , Liberal Arts, History, Archaeology and Geography. I am currently co-supervising a Ph.D. student in Museology at the University of Manchester (2025 - 2028).
In the Department of Anthropology at Maynooth University - I am currently teaching the following courses:
AN218: Ethnographic Museums of the Future (2nd Year Course)
The module introduces students to ethnographic museums as a problematic spaces of cultural knowledge production. From the outset, the establishment of ethnographic museums in colonial construction and European imagination was heavily influenced by the need to represent cultures of the colonised ‘other’ as timeless, frozen, and static. Henceforth, together with students we critique the anthropological category of ‘objects’ that projected the makers, users, and owners as anonymous thus silencing and obscuring biographies and meanings embedded in these ‘objects. At the same time, museum curatorship is critically discussed in view of extending the principle of care beyond ethos of ‘object’ conservation for posterity towards addressing what it also means to care for originating communities from Africa. Collaborations, open engagements, co-curatorship, co-production, multi-vocal conversations, and shared authority with originating communities in Africa where the objects were collected from during the colonial period are explored as decolonial methodologies that can be embraced by ethnographic museums of the future.
AN362: Heritage Tourism in Africa (3rd Year Course)
In this module we look at the production of heritage in Africa within tourism consumption routes and zones. We examine and discuss several examples that show how both natural and cultural heritage is packaged in presenting “authentic tourist experiences” in countries like South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique, and Kenya. In turn, the search for authenticity is critiqued in this class as a concept that is fluid, constantly staged and subsequently contributes towards cultural commodification. As far as the theoretical part is concerned, we reflect on the role of museums and world heritage sites as resources for cultural tourism. At the same time, the authorised heritage discourse which is underpinned by a nomination of monuments and sites in Africa to the prestigious World Heritage List also closely examined. We look at selected examples of World Heritage Sites which are popular with international tourists such as Robben Island Museum in Cape Town, SA, Great Zimbabwe Monument and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and Mt Kenya National Park. Students have a chance to critically engage with silenced intangible uses of cultural heritages sites in Africa by local communities. In fact, we show in this class following an argument made by Laurajane Smith (2006) that all heritage is intangible.
AN 619: Key Concepts and Ethnographic Practices (MA course)
The Key Concepts section introduces some of anthropology's most important ideas, exploring several of the analytical approaches’ characteristic of ethnographic inquiry today. It provides a short and intensive introduction to the discipline by focusing on culture as a central concept in anthropology. Tracing the place of culture and its critique and development within the discipline will enable us to engage with a number of other key categories of anthropological knowledge and knowing. The Ethnographic Practice section discusses ethnography as a core methodological tool in anthropology. We discuss key examples of different approaches to ethnography to foreshadow preparations for student research proposals.