Benson Mulemi

Benson A. Mulemi is an Associate Professor of (Medical) Anthropology. He is a Research Associate at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship, Faculty of Humanities, University of Pretoria, South Africa. He is also a 2023 LAHRI / Leeds University Centre for African Studies Virtual Fellow, in the African Ecologies research programme. He holds a PhD degree from the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands. He has experience in political anthropology, applied anthropology in development studies and culture and peace studies. Dr Mulemi was awarded the British Academy of Humanities and Social Sciences visiting scholar grant, and was a Visiting Research Fellow supported the by A.G. Leventis Foundation, at the Centre of African Studies and Wolfson College, Cambridge University, UK, in 2011 and 2014/15 respectively. He has convened various panels in international conferences, such as the European Conference on African Studies, and International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences’ (IUAES) Inter-Congress.

Research interests: hospital ethnography, culture & disability, human albinism, livelihood and personhood, ethnomedical Ecology, maternal health, health promotion.

Recent publications

Mulemi, B.A. (2022). Foundation, Status and Practice of Medical Anthropology in Eastern and Southern Africa., Second Opinion Jan 2022 Vol 10, No 1. Series: Global Medical Anthropologies, Society for Medical Anthropology Newsletter.

Mulemi, B.A. (2020). Lyrics and Artistic Improvisations in Health Promotion for COVID-19 Pandemic Control in East Africa, Journal of Global Health Promotion.

Hume, V., Mulemi, B.A, Sadock, M, (2018). Biomedicine and the Humanities: Growing pains, Medical Humanities, journal of the Institute of Medical Ethics (BMJ) Special Issue; 44:230-238.

Mulemi, B.A (2018). Social Justice and Moral Space in Hospital Cancer Care in Kenya. In: J Johnson, G.H. Karekwaivanane eds. Pursuing Justice in Africa: Competing Imaginaries and Contested Practices. 105-131, Ohio: Ohio University Press.

Mulemi, B.A. (2017). Mourning and Grieving, D.A. Leeming (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Psychology and Religion, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany.

Mulemi, B.A. (2017). Spiritual Health, D.A. Leeming (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Psychology and Religion, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany.

Mulemi, B.A (2017). Therapeutic Eclecticism and Cancer Care in a Kenyan Hospital Ward, in Olsen W.C. and Sargent, C. African Medical Pluralism, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, P. 207-226.

Mulemi, B. A (2015). Cancer crisis and treatment ambiguity in Kenya, In, H. Mathews, N. Burke, E, Kampriani & eds, Anthropologies of Cancer in Transnational Worlds, New York and London: Routledge. Pg. 156-176.

Fellow member
University of Pretoria
Expertise on: