Professor David Pratten
Associate Professor in the Social Anthropology of Africa and Head of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography
MA Manc, MA Oxf, PhD Lond
David Pratten is a Fellow of St Antony’s and the college Sub-Warden. He joined the African Studies Centre in 2005. He is a social anthropologist and his post is a joint appointment with the Institute of Social Anthropology. He studied at Oxford, Manchester and SOAS, and previously taught at the universities of Edinburgh and Sussex.
Research Interests
David’s research is based on a long-term engagement with Annang villagers in south-eastern Nigeria and focuses on themes of history, violence and the state. The focus of his initial work was an historical ethnography of colonialism which focused on the events surrounding a series of mysterious deaths in south-eastern Nigeria during the late 1940s. More recently his research has examined issues of youth, democracy and disorder in post-colonial Nigeria with a particular focus on vigilantism and new masquerade performances.
British Academy Summer Showcase 2018: Understanding the Niger Delta’s agaba masquerade tradition