Kevin Wamalwa

Kevin Wamalwa is a dissertator in the Departments of Anthropology and African Cultural Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Focusing on resource-based conflict and post-violence memory, Kevin studies how people cope with traumatic experiences in ways particular to their sociocultural settings. Currently, he is writing a dissertation on embodied memories of violence in which he explores situated understandings of victimhood and villainy in Mt. Elgon, Kenya. His research interest intersects with social and environmental justice. His academic publications included “The Problem of (un)Belonging” (2021) and Students’ Reparticularization of Chinese Language and Culture at the University of Rwanda Confucius Institute (Co-othered with Amy Stambach, 2018). He was a Mellon Public Humanities Fellow for the 2020-2021 academic year, where he collaborated with the Ripple Project to facilitate training on racial equity within the Dane County Library system. He was also a Fulbright Scholar at Bluefield State College in West Virginia before joining UW-Madison. A published poet and story writer with works including, Miale ya Ushairi (2015), a poetry study guide for high school and middle-level colleges. He also published a short story, Nimerudi Tena (I have Returned) in What is there in America? (2015, Iribemwangi, ed.). As a believer in education for all, Kevin founded the Deserv-Ed initiative, which supports needy high school and college students in Kenya to complete their education.