Dr Rachel Taylor

I am a historian of East and Central Africa, with a particular focus on histories of gender, labour, and consumption. 

My work explores how Africans build meaningful lives and communities in times of great social, political and economic change. Within this broad field, my current research project Sewing the City: Dressmaking and Modernity in Postcolonial Lubumbashi, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, seeks to provide a new history of the modern African city through analysing the work and lives of dressmakers in Lubumbashi.

I came to Oxford in 2018, working on the ERC-funded project Comparing the Copperbelt, headed by Miles Larmer. 

I completed my BA at Durham, my MA at SOAS (University of London), and my PhD in African history at Northwestern University (USA.)