Mona Academic Conference 2007, The University of West Indies at Mona

Geri Augusto
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Geri Augusto is an Independent Scholar-Practitioner whose research and practice now focus on knowledge dynamics in complex, interactive systems where power is unequal. This includes social and cultural interaction between contemporary indigenous African therapeutic knowledge and the biosciences, between local and global science, between historically black and historically white universities, and between lay and expert systems in many arenas. She is a Visiting Associate at the University of Cape Town (Centre for African Studies), and is working, along with others, on both a
Pan African project to produce a documentary film on Amilcar Cabral and
the creation of a cross-boundary Working Group to study “Interacting Knowledges” in Africa and the Diaspora. In Southern Africa, where Dr. Augusto lived for 18 years, her posts included English editor at Tanzania Publishing House, project economist and technical editor for the SADC Energy Sector Technical Unit ( Luanda ), consultant to UNICEF, and interpreter (Portuguese/English) for a variety of ministerial, Frontline states, and UN meetings. She taught in the masters degree program of the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University , from 1994 to 2002, and continues to teach occasionally in its executive programs. Since
1994, she has collaborated on several projects in the South African science and technology and higher education sectors, including: a study for the then-FRD on Strategic Issues in High-level HRD in Science, Engineering and Technology (1994-95); the Future Needs & Priorities Task Force for the National Commission on Higher Education (1995-96); the Department of Arts, Culture, Science and Technology's System-wide Review of the Science, Engineering and Technology Institutions (1997-98); and the First National Workshop on Indigenous Knowledge Systems (Mmabatho, 1998). Dr. Augusto has written several papers on the interaction between biological sciences and indigenous medico-botanical knowledge in South Africa . She holds a B.A. in economics from Howard University , ( Washington , D.C. ), a M.P.A. from Harvard University ( Cambridge ), and a doctorate in Education (Human and Organizational Learning) from the George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development ( Washington , D.C).

Contact : GMAugusto@aol.com

Abstract: Specters of Violence: History, Ethnography, and the Idea of Freedom