Walter Gam Nkwi is a lecturer at the Institute for History, University of Leiden since 1 September 2019. He also lectures at the Den Haag campus where he has been the coordinator of the African section since 2021. He is Associate Professor of Social History since 2018, promoted following ARRETE NO19-00007/ MINESUP/SP-CCIU Du 22 JAN 2019 of the Minister of Higher Education, Cameroon. He has a very wide spectrum of research interest amongst which include, Migration, African cultural and social history, relationship between technology, communication and society, African socio-political and conflict history, global and imperial history, contemporary history of technology in Africa and communication studies. Labour history under colonialism, women and Gender issues and above all political economy.

More information about Walter Nkwi Gam

Curriculum vitae

Between 2014 and 2017 he was the Faculty officer in the Faculty of Engineering and Technology, University of Buea and from September to November 2017 he was a senior research fellow at the African Studies Centre, Leiden. He was the keynote speaker at the International Conference on Maritime Museums, Hamburg, Germany, 17-19 October 2018.  He was African Oxford visiting fellow from April to June 2019. Nkwi holds a PhD in Social History/Social Anthropology from the Leiden University. He defended his thesis on 24 May 2011.The title of his thesis, kfaang with its technologies:Towards a Social history of Mobility in Kom, Cameroon, c.1928-1998. This thesis is a social history of Kom in the Northwest Region of Cameroon. It focuses on the relationship between mobility, Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) and social hierarchies from 1928 to 1998.

On 23 March 2022, Walter Nkwi was appointed as an Honorary Professor of African History in the School of Applied Human Sciences (Psychology), University of KwaZulu-Natal, Republic of South Africa.

Memberships and functions

Dr. Nkwi belongs to several intellectual associations. Amongst these he is a member of Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA); South-South Exchange Programme for Research on the History of Development, (SEPHIS); West African Research Association (WARA); International Society of Oral Literature in Africa (ISOLA); World Economic History Congress (WEHC); Association of Friends of the Archives and Antiquities of Cameroon, (AFAAC);  Research Network for Domestic Worker Rights (RN-DWR); Associacion Latinamericana de Estudios de Asia y Africa  (ALADAA); Pan African Anthropological Association (PAAA); Africa-Asia: A New Axis of Knowledge; Member of Cameroon History Society.

Selected publications

Dr. Nkwi has published in books, articles in peer review journals, book chapters and encyclopedias. His research interest is focus on marrying history with ethnography. Amongst his publications, he has published books, Journals, Book chapters and Encyclopedia entries. The following are some of his publications:

His research interest is focus on marrying history with ethnography. Amongst his publications, he has published books, Journals, Book chapters and Encyclopedia entries. The following are some of his publications:

Books

• African Modernities and Mobilities: An Ethnographic History of Kom, Cameroon, c.1800-2008 (Mankon, Bamenda: Langaa Research and Common Initiative Publishing House,2015)
• Voicing the Voiceless: Contributions to Filling Gaps in Cameroon History, 1958-2009, (Mankon, Bamenda: Langaa Research and Common Initiative Publishing House, 2010

Journal articles

• “Words Cannot be found: Terrorism and Extreme Violence in Anglophone Cameroon” African Journal for the Prevention and Combating of Terrorism,7, 1, (2018): 117-42.
• “Communication in Africa: Talking Drums and Town Criers in Pre-colonial and Colonial Bamenda Grassfields, Cameroon” The Saber and Scroll Journal, 7, 2, (2018): 7-36.
• “Migration and Identity in the Southwest Region of Cameroon: The Graffie Factor, c.1930s-1996”. Brazilian Journal of African Studies, 2,3, (2017): 131-148.

Book Chapters

• “Blueprints of Colonial Modernity in Africa: The Victoria Port City, (Cameroon) c. 1920s-1959”. PP.265-282. Le Cameroun sous Domination Europeene: Entre Recontres, Partage et Conflictualites sous le direection de Isidore Paschal Ndjock Nyobe and Jean Baptiste Nzogue. (Yaounde, Cameroun : Ifrikiya, 2018)
• Ruben Um Nyobe: maquisard Camerounais, radical et Liberateur, c.1948-1958 .pp.75-96. Biographies de la Radicalisation Des Messages caches du Changement social. Sous la direction de Mirjam de Bruijn. (Mankon, Bamenda : Langaa RPCIG, 2018)
• “The Body of Christ? Amen”: Christianity and the Cannibalisation of the Bamenda Grassfielders (Cameroon), pp.157-190. In Francis B. Nymanjoh (eds) Eating and Being Eaten: Cannibalism as food for Thought.  Mankon, Bamenda: Langaa Research &Publishing CIG, 2018.

Encyclopedia Articles

• “Kom” In African Kingdoms: An Encyclopedia of Empires and Civilisations Aderinto Saheed (ed.), 149-153, Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2017.
• “Post War Societies (Africa): The First World War ex-soldiers in the Bamenda Grassfields, (Cameroon)” In: 1914-1918-Online International Encyclopedia of the First World War, by Ute Daniel; Peter Gatrell; Oliver Janz; Heather Jones; Jennifer Keene; Alan Kramer and Bill Nasson, eds.,pp.1-10. Berlin, Germany: Freie University, 2015