Mr Richard Levi Raber (he/him)

As a Postdoctoral Research Associate, I am part of the Arts and Humanities Research Council funded project, “Children of War: Evolving Local and Global Understandings of Child Soldiering in Africa, c. 1940-2000” team. I hold a Ph.D in History from Indiana University. My current book project, tentatively entitled, “‘In the eyes of the new government, we are covered in mud’: Cultural Memory, Generational Conflict, and the Imprint of Militarization on Two Former Military Communities” focuses on the former South African Defence Force 31 and 32 Battalion veterans and their families. This project draws on more than 115 oral history interviews, consultation of over a dozen archives, visual cultural analysis, and ethnographic observation. In support of this research, I received a Fulbright U.S. Student Program award to South Africa, a Social Science Research Council Mellon International Dissertation Research Fellowship supporting research in both South Africa and Namibia, as well as multiple Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships.

My work has been featured in Cold War History and Left History, and I have a forthcoming co-authored article in The Journal of African History. I am also Associate Editor of Nokoko, an interdisciplinary journal of African studies hosted by the Institute of African Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. Prior to entering higher education, I gained relevant professional experience in a number of countries including South Africa, Sierra Leone, Kyrgyzstan, South Korea, Italy, and Luxembourg. I have also published in popular fora such as Mail & Guardian, Daily Maverick, and Open Democracy. I can be found on Twitter @BushWarHistory.