Dr Michael Francis
Programme Leader and Senior Lecturer, Politics
Dr Michael Francis is a social scientist with expertise in the broader subject areas of economic history, ethnicity and socioeconomic development and change.
Prior to coming to Chester, he taught at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South African and Athabasca University in Canada. Previously he also worked as an independent researcher and consultant in the areas of social impact assessment, resettlement planning, monitoring and evaluation, public participation and facilitation, Indigenous Peoples Planning and applied research. He has experience working around the world in over a dozen countries.
He teaches across three programmes in International Relations, Politics, and Economics. His academic teaching has focused on re-centring the developing world at the heart of globalisation and global inequalities as well as understanding the role of society and culture in shaping societal responses.
He teaches in the following modules:
- SO4005 - Economic Thought and International Studies
- SO4705 - Globalisation then and Now
- SO5004 - Globalization and International Trade
- SO6051 - International Political Economy
He is an active researcher with over 30 professional and academic publications. Of these, ten are academic articles and book chapters and the remaining 20 are applied research papers. The applied papers are peer reviewed and have a real world impact shaping development funding, development planning and mitigating negative effects of industrial and agricultural expansion. He has worked on conflict and conflict transformation, security and insecurity, involuntary resettlement and displacement, Indigenous Peoples rights, global political economy and global connections.
Francis, S; Francis, M; and Akinola, A. (2016) ‘The Edge of the Periphery: Situating the ≠Khomani San of the Southern Kalahari in the Political Economy of Southern Africa’ African Identities 14(4): 373-383.
Olaniyan A, Francis, M and Okeke-Uzodike, U. (2015). “The cattle are ‘Ghanaians’ but the rearers are strangers”: farmer-herder conflicts, expulsion policy and pastoralist question in Agogo, Ghana. African Studies Quarterly 15(2): 39-51.
Mulwo’ AK, KG Tomaselli and Francis, M (2012). ‘HIV/AIDS and Discourses of Denial in sub-Saharan Africa: An Afro-optimist response?’ International Journal of Cultural Studies 15(6): 567-582.
Francis, M (2010) ‘The Crossing: The invention of tradition among San descendants of the Drakensberg, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa’. African Identities 8(1): 39-52.
Francis, M. and Francis, S (2010) ‘Representation and Misrepresentation: San regional advocacy and the Global imagery’. Critical Arts 24(2): 210-227.
Francis, M. (2009a) ‘Contested histories: A critique in the Rock Art’ Visual Anthropology 22(4): 327-343.
Francis, M (2009b) ‘Silencing the past: Historical and archaeological colonisation of the Southern San KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa’. Anthropology Southern Africa Vol 32 (3 & 4): 106-116.
Tomaselli, KG, Dyll, L and Francis, M. (2008) “Self” and “Other”: Auto-Reflexive and Indigenous Ethnography in Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies (pp. 347-372). Sage Publications.
Francis, M (2010) ‘Cultural invention of the Southern San’ in HK Anheier and YR Isar, (eds) Heritage, Memory, Identity. Cultures and Globalization series, #4.
Francis, M. (2009) ‘San [Abatwa/‘Bushman’] Eland Ceremony [southern Africa] in Encyclopaedia of Social Movement Media. Sage Publications.
- PhD University of KwaZulu-Natal
- MA University of Natal
- BA Honours University of Alberta