Neil Maheve

Neil B. Maheve is a Zimbabwean political scientist, historian and storyteller, engaging with development narratives in marginal rural Zimbabwe communities. He is a Thomas Sankara Global Partnership Network Fellow. He holds a PhD in Political and International Studies from Rhodes University. His research interests include but are not limited to development politics, human-wildlife interaction, natural resource conservation, youthhood and waithood in marginal areas, Sino-African relations, and the histories of marginalised groups. He is interested in co-creating knowledge with local communities on animal and natural resources. Concurrently, he examines how women's access to land affects their power and influence, thereby contributing to a deeper understanding of equitable development. His work is grounded in post-development thinking, and borrows on alternatives to, moving beyond development but alternatives to understanding and approaches to the everyday. Neil is currently working and writing on human-non-human interactions, exploring how people interact with animals in ways that mainstream academia is quick to dismiss Beyond academia, he serves on the board of the Maidhona Foundation Trust, a Zimbabwean PVO committed to improving the lives of vulnerable children in rural Zimbabwe. He plans to utilise his time at the African Studies Centre Leiden to complete his articles on human-animal interactions using the animal turn as a conceptual framework. In addition he also seeks to broaden his research to include animal-human communication. He will be working with the CRG Trans-species perspectives on African studies.