The European Research Council has awarded a consolidator grant to Prof Julia Gallagher for her project, Understanding Statehood through Architecture: a comparative study of Africa’s state buildings.
The five-year project sets out to understand how African states work and what they mean to citizens.
It does so by looking at state buildings, such as parliaments, ministries, courts, police stations and presidential headquarters in seven African countries – South Africa, Tanzania, DR Congo, Ethiopia, Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire and Guinea Bissau.
The project will involve a team of five researchers who will use photography, archival and ethnographic methods to explore the meaning of state buildings.
The grant is for €1,870,664 and the project is expected to begin in September 2018.