Bruce Whitehouse

Research Interests

• Transnational migration (western Sahel to Central Africa, Europe & N. America)
• Marriage and polygyny
• Population dynamics
• Urbanization and urban identities
• Domestic structure and households
• States and state failure in Africa
• The western Sahel region
• Bamako, Mali
• Brazzaville, Republic of Congo

Courses Taught

• Cultural Diversity & Human Nature (ANTH 011)
• Cultural Study & Globalization (ANTH/GS 106)
• Health, Illness & Healing (ANTH/HMS 155)
• Peoples & Cultures of Africa (AAS/ANTH 183)
• So You Want to Save the World (ANTH/GS 317)
• Global Capitalism (ANTH/GS 320)

Forthcoming book

         Enduring Polygamy: Plural Marriage and Social Change in an African Metropolis, Rutgers University Press

         - See accompanying 7-minute video

Recent Publications

• “Illicit Flows to the UAE Take the Shine off African Gold,” MERIP 305 (Winter 2023)
• "Left in the Cold: The Mirage of Marriage and Family Law Reform in Post-Colonial Mali," Journal of Legal Anthropology 6(1): 73-94 (2022)
• "Male Dominance versus Female Hidden Power: Patriarchy, Marriage, and Gender in Bamako, Mali." L'Ouest Saharien 16: 119-142 (2022)
• "Mali: Collapse and Instability." In The Oxford Handbook of the African Sahel, edited by Leonardo A. Villalón. Oxford University Press (2021)
• "Public Perceptions of Violent Extremism in Mali." In African Border Disorders: Addressing Transnational Extremist Organizations, edited by Olivier J. Walther and William F.S. Miles. Routledge (2018)
• "The Trouble with Monogamy: Companionate Marriage and Gendered Suspicion in Bamako, Mali." Mande Studies 19: 131-149 (2017)
• "Political Participation and Mobilization after Mali's 2012 Coup." African Studies Review 60(1): 15-35 (2017)
• “Sadio’s Choice: Love, Materialism and Consensual Marriage in Bamako, Mali.” Africa Today 62(3): 28-46 (2016)
• “Introduction: Rethinking Challenges to State Sovereignty in Mali and Northwest Africa.” African Security 8(4): 213-226 (with Francesco Strazzari, 2015)
• "Definitions and the Experience of Fertility Problems: Infertile and Sub-fertile Women, Childless Mothers, and Honorary Mothers in Two Southern Nigerian Communities," Medical Anthropology Quarterly 28(1): 122-139 (with Marida Hollos) (2014)
• “A Festival of Brigands”: In search of democracy and political legitimacy in Mali,” Strategic Review for Southern Africa 35(2): 35-52 (2013)
• Migrants and Strangers in an African City: Exile, Dignity, Belonging, Indiana University Press (2012)
• "The Force of Action: Legitimizing the Coup in Bamako, Mali," Africa Spectrum 47(2-3): 93-110 (2012)
• "What went wrong in Mali?" London Review of Books 34(16): 17-18 (2012)
• "Centripetal Forces: Reconciling cosmopolitan lives and local loyalty in a Malian transnational social field," In West African Migrations: Transnational and Global Pathways in a New Century, edited by Olufemi Vaughan and Mojubaolu Olufunke Okome, Palgrave McMillan (2012)

Fieldwork

• Second stage of research in Bamako, Mali on marriage and polygyny, December 2019-January 2020
• Fulbright-funded field research in Bamako, Mali on marriage and polygyny, August 2011 - June 2012
• Postdoctoral field research in southern Nigeria on women’s experiences of infertility, June – August 2007
• Dissertation field research in Bamako, Mali and Brazzaville, Republic of Congo on transnational migration between West Africa and the Congo Basin, January 2005 – January 2006
• Pre-dissertation research in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo and Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, on West African immigrant communities in the Congo Basin, July – August 2003​
• Field research in Koulikoro region of Mali on household organization and social cohesion in a migrant-sending community, May – August 2002