MSc in African Studies

Course Overview

The MSc is a cross-disciplinary degree that introduces students to the main currents in recent scholarship on the African continent and provides training in key methodological approaches. The course draws on History, Politics, Anthropology, Media Studies and Gender Studies amongst other disciplines and requires students to take an inter-disciplinary approach towards their studies. The taught element of the degree prepares students to undertake their own research project and to write an original dissertation. The course is best suited to students with a primary interest in sub-Saharan Africa, although dissertation projects occasionally include North Africa and the diaspora.

Alumni of the MSc course go on to have careers in academia, research and journalism, and with NGOs, national governments and international institutions.

Core Courses

Core Course 1 - Researching Africa: Strategies, Methods and Ethics

This core course introduces students to the many disciplinary, thematic, practical and ethical and epistemological issues involved in researching Africa. Awareness of methodology is central to a critical approach to scholarship and essential in developing the skills in research design that must be the first step toward the completion of a successful dissertation within this MSc programme. This course is therefore both intellectually rigorous and practical.

The emphasis is on the distinctive approaches of the various disciplines involved in African Studies, although many of the research strategies to be addressed are of course not unique to Africa. Therefore, whilst readings for the course will focus upon African examples, students will also be encouraged to consider the ways in which methods devised in other areas may be adapted and applied in the circumstances of research in Africa. The course also tackles issues of interdisciplinary and methodological pluralism, as well as the practical issues of preparing for fieldwork and preliminary issues of research ethics in the African context.

The topics to be covered during the course include:

• Researching Africa: These lectures consider the ways in which the social sciences have framed Africa and explore the ethical, epistemological and political issues of doing research in or on Africa today. They foster a critical reflection on African Studies and on “Africa” as its underlying unit of analysis.
• Investigating Africa's past: Documentary sources are of central relevance to all disciplines engaged in the study of Africa. These lectures survey the range of approaches to archival and documentary study and chart the evolution of the methodologies for collecting oral evidence.
• Anthropology and Africa: The theoretical and historical origins of social anthropology are examined along with a critical analysis of the claims made for the discipline's key method, participant observation. We also interrogate the use of visual sources and material culture.
• Political Science: Qualitative methods are crucial elements of research in the social sciences in Africa. These lectures aim to give a general introduction to the uses of qualitative methods. The lectures also trace the development of the discipline of political science, paying particular attention to methodological shifts. 

The course is taught by a series of eight lectures, each dealing with a particular methodology or research strategy or ethical/epistemological issue. The lectures are supported by classes, in which students consider specific examples of research practice through a close reading of case study materials. A series of research design lectures run in parallel to complement the teaching curriculum. Faculty present their own research projects and discuss the research strategies, methodological decision-making, use of sources and the ethical issues that have arisen during their own research. The course is assessed a portfolio of assignments.

Core Course 2 Understanding Modern Africa

Lectures and seminars consider the shifting character of the state and society in Africa, from the pre-colonial to the post-colonial. Power, culture, gender, trade, slavery, colonialism, urbanization, nationalism, 'patrimonialism', economic collapse, state ‘failure', and democratization are all examined with reference to continental patterns and variations and set within the context of current debates about the value of indigenous forms of authority and the need for political accountability.

While each week focuses on a key area of debate about state and society in Africa, the course is organized in broadly chronological order. We begin with African states and society in the so-called ‘pre-colonial' period, before analysing colonial conquest and local resistance, the impact of the colonial state and its vision of ‘modernity', nationalism and independence. The course then analyses authoritarianism and patrimonialism in the 'post-colony', before considering more contemporary themes such as economic and political liberalisation, and the good governance agenda.

Lectures focus on identifying historical continuities and critical junctures and cover a broad range of key themes which may include:

• Africa's Long History of Globalisation c.1400-1800 
• The ‘Precolonial' Nineteenth Century
• European Colonialism in Africa c.1880-1940
• African Nationalist Histories
• Development, Modernization and the State c.1940-1973
• The Post-Colonial State
• The Politics of Structural Adjustment
• Democracy in Africa from c.1990

The course is taught through eight lectures and eight participatory classes and assessed by an examination.

In the spring term (Hilary) students choose two options from a broad range of thematic courses. The option courses are taught by weekly classes and examined by an extended essay.

The in-house option courses available in Hilary 2026 are:

• The African City
• Politics of the Security Sector in Africa
• Contemporary African Popular Culture
• Pan-Africanism: Past, Present, Future
• Modern Slavery in Africa: Economic Regimes and Cultural Worlds
• African Literature

Any non-AS MSc student (i.e. students from DPIR, ODID or MPhil GAS) wishing to take one of these courses must contact the African Studies Programme Administrator via african.studies@africa.ox.ac.uk to obtain a place on the course.

The culmination of the MSc programme is a dissertation of 12,000 words which must be based on original research and discussion of the comparative reading, historiography, or theory relevant to the dissertation. Students are allocated a supervisor and are offered supervisions approximately once a fortnight.

Most students conduct fieldwork as part of their dissertation. This is carefully planned and discussed with the supervisor. However, fieldwork is not an essential component of the course and students are encouraged to make use of the wide range of under-studied documents and archives available via the Bodleian Libraries. Supervisors will be able to offer information on past dissertation topics, and to suggest potentially rewarding areas of research.

Good African Studies MSc dissertation topics vary in character a great deal, but generally have four things in common. Firstly, they are focused on a manageable question (or set of questions). Secondly, they advance a powerful and consistent argument that is supported with ample empirical evidence. Thirdly, they add something to the discipline in that they present original empirical material or original interpretations of an established debate (ideally both). Finally, they are well-organised so that the argument develops in a logical manner and the key aims set out in the introduction are thoroughly answered in the conclusion.

Some examples of recent MSc dissertation titles include:

• The Farmer-Herder Conflict in Nigeria: The Role of the Media
• Self and Society in the Aftermath of War: Women's Narratives of the Biafran War
• Where is the pain? A critical analysis of Ghana's tramadol 'crisis'
• International Criminal Justice & Complex Political Victimhood: An Analysis of the Dominic Ongwen Trial
• Violence Against Women in the Second Italo-Ethiopian War and in Ethiopia Today Approved
• Imperial Prisons, tensions and ‘reform': the significance of Alexander Paterson's visits to Africa c.1938-1946
• From the Nation's Capital to a Contested City: Questioning the status of Mogadishu in federal Somalia
• Sustainability of South Africa Abalone Production: Review of Fisheries and Aquaculture
• Tourism and Identity: Investigating the Contributions of Ghana's ‘Year of Return' to the ‘Back to Africa Movement'.
• The Evidence for Financial Education Programmes in Africa: Assessing the Applicability of Global Evidence to Eswatini
• Marking, Mapping and Making Congolese Space: Cartographies and Colonialism 1885 -1960
• Questioning the Mauritian Democracy Success Story: the case of Creole women
• Regional Accountability between outcome and policy: A Comparative Study of Transitional Justice in West Africa and Latin America
• Regional Organisations in Peace and Security: A Comparative Study of the EU-AU and the EU-ECOWAS Partnerships in Mali
• Morocco's Africa Policy from the 2010s: A Motivated Reconnection
• Perceptions of China's COVID-19 pandemic aid in Africa: a case study of Tanzania
• Les Évolués: Eurocentrism and the Black ‘elites' in the Belgian Congo. 
• The Politicisation of Self-determination through Social Media: A Netnography of the Homeland Study Group Foundation, 2016-2021 
• What comes after racist science? Investigating institutional and researcher responses to two race-related research controversies in South Africa 
• The Relationship Between Southern African States and Mining Transnational Corporations in the 21st Century: Constancies and Reconfigurations in Relation to Domestic and Global Processes. 
• Cultural Identity, Resistance & Cartoons In Post-Colonial Ghana. The Case of Ananse the Spider.
• The Context of Beauty-work among Young Nigerian Women.
• Start-ups and the State in Lagos: motorbike-hailing, digitalisation, and future technology adoption
• Nature and identity in the poetry and short stories of Ken Saro-Wiwa.
• Deconstructing Power at the ICC in Relation to Africa
• Njuindem to 'Bangwa Queen': gender, power and the restitution of 'African Art'.

Students in African Studies at Oxford benefit from the rich resources of the University's libraries and museums and the numerous Africa related student societies and research groups which are active throughout the University.