Remembering Paul Hebinck

We are saddened by the news that fellow Africanist Dr Paul Hebinck unexpectedly passed away on 21 June 2022 during a holiday in France. Paul worked at Wageningen University until his formal retirement three years ago, and was a visiting professor at Fort Hare University, South Africa, from 2007 to 2022. He was involved in the ASCL as a teacher in the Research Master African Studies, in various conferences and seminars, and as an ASCL Community member.
 

Paul was a jovial and open person, and strongly committed to Africa and its people. His deep involvement in Western Kenya and Luo society was built up during years of fieldwork there. He also worked a lot on South Africa, as well as on Namibia and Zimbabwe, where his commitment to the ‘actor-oriented sociology of development’ was evident. He did a number of original and collaborative research projects on themes like rural poverty, land rights and land conflicts, irrigation management, food economies, agrarian reform, and on new topics such as poachers and poaching in Kenya. These themes were also close to core research concerns of several ASCL staff over the years.

 

He taught for years in the Research Master African Studies (and Master) course ‘Theories and the empirical in African Studies’ and in the regional course on Eastern Africa, and his lectures (up to 2018) were always done with enthusiasm and much appreciated by students. Paul was also a member of the Research Master Board from 2007 to 2010.

 

While he retired in 2019 at WAU (with a symposium in his honour on ‘rural transformations studied from below’) he was still active with publications and in research projects, such as ‘Longitudinal studies: agrarian change processes in Luoland, West Kenya’, as well as research on resettlement in Zimbabwe, in collaboration with Dr. Bill Kinsey and ASCL colleagues.  

 

We lost an enthusiastic African Studies researcher and a good colleague. The ASCL expresses its condolences to his loved ones, especially to his wife Monique.

 

Leiden, 24 June 2022