In 2014, the Gerda Henkel Foundation initiated a scholarship programme supporting young humanities scholars from Africa and Southeast Asia in honour of the foundation's founder, Lisa Maskell. It is the largest international support programme for PhD students in the history of the Foundation. The Lisa Maskell Fellowships aim to strengthen universities in the partner countries, to counter the outflow of qualified young scholars and to ensure the doctoral students enjoy excellent academic training.
In the following months, L.I.S.A. will publish interviews with the Lisa Maskell Fellows from Stellenbosch University in South Africa, in which they will talk about their research projects as well as their experiences during their academic career and the Lisa Maskell fellowship.
This week, we welcome Elijah Doro from Zimbabwe. After graduating from the University of Zimbabwe, he started his PhD in History with the thesis A Socio-Environmental History of Commercial Tobacco Farming in Southern Rhodesia and Zimbabwe, c. 1893-2000s at Stellenbosch University in 2017.