Dr Mark Leopold

Biography

Mark Leopold gained his D.Phil in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford in 2001. Before starting as a Lecturer at Sussex in 2006, he taught social anthropology at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and at the University of Oxford.

Role

Mark Leopold's research focuses on the political and historical anthropology of Africa, particularly north east Africa (especially northern Uganda, southern Sudan and north east Democratic Republic of Congo). Fieldwork in Arua district, north west Uganda, between 1995 and 1998, together with archival research in Uganda and the UK, has so far led to a book and a number of journal articles and book chapters. Mark's work addresses such issues as the causes and consequences of war and political violence, the relationship between past and present and that between representation and reality, concepts of masculinity, forced migration, the nature of border areas, and the role of the state and non-state organisations in contemporary Africa. Specific topics on which Mark has written include legacies of slavery in Sudan and Uganda, the role of northern NGOs in African conflict areas, and the relationship between local history writing and post-conflict reconstruction. He is currently writing a biography of former Ugandan President Idi Amin (for Yale University Press), and is part of an EU-funded research project on conflict, water politics and climate change.  He is also interested in the effects of recent oil discoveries in West and North West Uganda, and the role of the oil industry and other transnational factors in the recent war and current peacemaking process in southern Sudan, as well as in various aspects of the history of social anthropology.  He has been awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship for one year from August 1 2010, to finish his book on Idi Amin

Research Students
Natalie Djohari - Embracing Trauma: Human Rights and Post-Conflict Youth Identity in Guatemala (D.Phil awarded 2008).

Ines Hasselberg - An Ethnography of Deportation in Britain.

John Spall - Ex-combatants in Angola: Masculinities, Poverty and the Legacy of Violence.

Mark is convenor of the MA in the Anthropology of Conflict, Violence and Conciliation.  He teaches Masters courses on Researching and Reporting Conflict, and Culture and Society in Africa, as well as Undergraduate courses on the anthropology of Africa, economic anthropology, issues in contemporary anthropology and anthropological theory.

Student Consultation

Office Hours for Spring Term 2012: Thursdays 12.00-13.00.  Please email for an appointment at other times.

Leopold, Mark (2013) "Print the legend": myth and reality in 'The last King of Scotland'. In: Framing Africa: portrayals of a continent in contemporary mainstream cinema. Berghahn Books, New York. ISBN 9781782380733

Leopold, Mark (2013) Idi Amin Dada: Africa's icon of evil. Yale University Press, New Haven.

Leopold, Mark (2010) Idi Amin: Icon of Evil. Groniek Historisch Tijdschrift (188). pp. 251-262. ISSN 0169-2801

Leopold, Mark (2009) Crossing the line: 100 years of the North-West Uganda/South Sudan border. Journal of East African Studies, 3 (3). pp. 464-478. ISSN 1753-1055

Leopold, Mark (2009) Sex, Violence and History in the Lives of Idi Amin: Postcolonial Masculinity as Masquerade. Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 45 (3). pp. 321-330. ISSN 1744-9855

Leopold, Mark (2005) Inside West Nile: violence, history and representation on an African frontier. World Anthropology Series . James Currey. ISBN 9781930618657