History
Welcome to Stellenbosch University

Academic Staff

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Senior Lecturer

Dr Justin Pearce

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021 808 2190​





Teaching

  • History 144: South Africa in the 20th century
  • History 214: Empires, states and the making of a global economy
  • Honours programme co-ordinator
  • Honours: Writing nationalism
  • Honours: Liberation struggles, civil conflict and the Cold War in Southern Africa


Research interests

​Justin Pearce’s work is on liberation struggles and civil conflict in Southern Africa, particularly Angola and Mozambique. He is especially interested in the articulation between individual, local and national understandings of politics and identity, and international exchanges of ideas in the context of what has become known as the Global Cold War. He is the author of Political Identity and Conflict in Central Angola 1975-2002 (Cambridge, 2015) and an editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies.

Supervision interests

Southern African history, particularly Angola and Mozambique; late colonialism and decolonisation, particularly in the Portuguese Empire; liberation struggles; civil conflict; war and society; opposition politics; media.  

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Key publications

Monograph

Political Identity and Conflict in Central Angola, 1975–2002, Cambridge University Press, 2015, reprint 2018.

Published in Portuguese translation as A Guerra Civil em Angola, 1975-2002, Tinta-da-China, Lisbon, 2017.

 

Journal articles

'“In my territory you have to do something": MK, FAPLA and the war against UNITA.' Forthcoming in Journal of Southern African Studies, 2025.

'Traces of solidarity in liberation training sites in Angola'. Sources: Materials and Fieldwork in African Studies 5, 2023.

'Simango, Gwenjere and the politics of the past in Mozambique'. Journal of Southern African Studies 47 (3), June 2021.

'History, legitimacy and Renamo's return to arms in central Mozambique'. Africa 90 (4), August 2020. 

'From rebel movement to political party: UNITA's social engagement in post-war Angola'.  Government and Opposition 55 (3), July 2020.

'Briefing: Angola's elections and the politics of presidential succession.' African Affairs 117 (466), January 2018 (co-authored with Didier Péclard & Ricardo Soares de Oliveria).

'Global ideologies and local politics: The Cold War as seen from Central Angola'. Journal of Southern African Studies 43 (1), January 2017. 

'Contesting the past in Angolan politics'. Journal of Southern African Studies 41 (1), January 2015. 

'Control, politics and identity in the Angolan civil war​'. African Affairs, 111 (444), July 2012. 

'L'Unita à la recherche de «son peuple»​'. Dossier Angola, Politique Africaine 110, June 2008.

 

Book chapters

'Trends within historical studies on Angola and Mozambique from decolonisation to the present' in  History and Decolonization. Africanist Historiography and History Makers, c. 1860s-2020s, Routledge, forthcoming 2025.

'History of UNITA in Angola', The Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History, 2024.

'Disputing democracy and challenging the state in Mozambique' in Wale Adebanwi (ed.), Everyday State and Democracy in Africa: Ethnographic Encounters, Ohio University Press 2022.

'Peace accords in Angola: Contesting the meaning of success' in Grace Maina and Erik Melander (eds) Peace Agreements and Durable Peace in Africa, University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2015.

'Angola: Changing nationalisms, from war to peace' in Eric Morier-Genoud (ed) Sure road? Nations and Nationalisms in Lusophone Africa, Brill, 2012.​