Sibel Kusimba
Biographic Data
| ID | 84017 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Sibel Kusimba |
| GIVEN NAMES | Sibel |
| FAMILY NAME | Kusimba |
| SIGNATURE | KUSIMBA S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of South Florida |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 20 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 165 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
Feasting in the Late Swahili: Zooarchaeological Remains from the Friday Mosque Complex at Mtwapa, Kenya
Feasting played key roles in Swahili society during the medieval (c. 800–1500 CE) and colonial (c. 1500–1963 CE) periods, contributing to sociopolitical transformation and Islamic practice. However, the zooarchaeological signatures of feasting in the Swahili context remain poorly studied. Here, we report faunal remains recovered from the Friday Congregation Mosque Complex at Mtwapa to examine feasting and commemorative practices during the 15th–s…
Legacies, logics, labors of love: Essays on the economic anthropology of Jane Guyer
We write to note the passing of world-renowned Africanist and economic anthropologist Jane Isabel Guyer, who died in Davis, California, on January 17, 2024, from complications from dementia. Born in Dunoon, Scotland, on New Year's Eve in 1943, she had just turned 80. Jane earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Rochester in 1972 and went on to teach at Boston University, Harvard, Northwestern, and, finally, Johns Hopkins, from which s…
Finance and care
Crowdfunding care in Kenya
Crowdfunding to support personal and medical needs has risen in popularity in recent years. Many sociologists are critical of needy individuals’ turn to online fundraising, seeing it as a response to deficits in health care and social protection, and arguing that it may widen social inequalities. Most of these studies have taken place in the United States, China, and Great Britain. This paper explores crowdfunding in sub-Saharan Africa, offering …
Embodied value: Wealth-in-people
In a world of social inequality, health disparities, and poverty, the economic value of people remains unrecognized, undervalued, and exploited. Recently, the ongoing conflict between capitalist markets and human value came to the fore again during the coronavirus pandemic, when many health systems were unprepared. In the United States, business and government leaders feared that quarantines would damage the economy. Their public statements urgin…
Social Networks of Mobile Money in Kenya
With mobile money technologies, people use mobile phones to send money to friends and relatives, connect to bank accounts, and make payments. This research examines the role of mobile money in Kenyans’ social and economic networks. Research reported was conducted in Bungoma and Trans-Nzoia Counties in Kenya, and among Kenyans living in Chicago, Illinois in the summer of 2012.Although mobile money services are often described as a form of “banking…
Money, Mobile Money and Rituals in Western Kenya: The Contingency Fund and the Thirteenth Cow
This article, based on fieldwork in Western Kenya from 2012 to 2016, describes how life cycle rituals collect and distribute different forms of money, including land, property, personhood, animals, cash, and digital moneys. It specifically examines a ritual coming of age for adolescent boys. By organizing multiple forms of money relative to the phases of a human life, the past, and the future, these rituals serve to manage and transfer wealth acr…
It is easy for women to ask: Gender and digital finance in Kenya
This article examines the role of gender in the use of digital finance in Kenya, including the well-known case of mobile money but also the emerging use of smartphone apps, payment tills, digital credit services, and digital fund-raising computer programs. Development professionals have explicitly feminist goals in bringing digital finance to women in the Global South. In several recent reports, they outline the belief that gender norms are a bar…
Mosaics
Mosaics - 1 - Rethinking African connections in Coastal and Hinterland Kenya
Mtwapa
Trade and State Formation in Ancient East African Coast and Southern Zambezia
Hearthholds of mobile money in western Kenya
Kenyans use mobile money services to transfer money to friends and relatives via mobile phone text messaging. Kenya's M-Pesa is one of the most successful examples of digital money for financial inclusion. This article uses social network analysis and ethnographic information to examine ties to and through women in 12 mobile money transfer networks of kin, drawn from field data collected in 2012, 2013, and 2014. The social networks are based on r…
Hunter-Gatherer-Fishers of Eastern and South-Central Africa Since 20,000 Years Ago
A growing number of sites and sequences are now coming together to paint a more complete picture of East African hunter-gatherers of the last 20,000 years. During this period, microlithic technologies became widespread as hunter-gatherers adapted to different environments, ranging from highly mobile hunters of large game to sedentary forest dwellers with broad diets, and semi-sedentary hunter-fisher-gatherers. Other themes that emerge are greater…
Beyond the Coastalscapes: Preindustrial Social and Political Networks in East Africa
The Trading of Ancient Glass Beads: New Analytical Data From South Asian and East African Soda–alumina Glass Beads
The occurrence of similar glass beads at archaeological sites in Africa and Asia bears witness to the trade relationship between the two continents. This paper reports elemental analysis results from a recent in‐depth laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (LA–ICP–MS) study of a group of archaeological glass beads with a specific alumina‐rich composition from East Africa, India and Sri Lanka. Based on the concentrations o…
What Is a Hunter-Gatherer? Variation in the Archaeological Record of Eastern and Southern Africa
The Development and Collapse of Precolonial Ethnic Mosaics in Tsavo, Kenya
Archaeologists and historians have long believed that little interaction existed between Iron Age cities of the Kenya Coast and their rural hinterlands. Ongoing archaeological and anthropological research in Tsavo, Southeast Kenya, shows that Tsavo has been continuously inhabited at least since the early Holocene. Tsavo peoples made a living by foraging, herding, farming, and producing pottery and iron, and in the Iron Age were linked to global m…
The Early Later Stone Age in East Africa: Excavations and Lithic Assemblages from Lukenya Hill
Hunter–Gatherer Land Use Patterns in Later Stone Age East Africa
Iron technology in East Africa: Symbolism, science, and archaeology
The Trading of Ancient Glass Beads: New Analytical Data From South Asian and East African Soda–alumina Glass Beads
The occurrence of similar glass beads at archaeological sites in Africa and Asia bears witness to the trade relationship between the two continents. This paper reports elemental analysis results from a recent in‐depth laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (LA–ICP–MS) study of a group of archaeological glass beads with a specific alumina‐rich composition from East Africa, India and Sri Lanka. Based on the concentrations o…
Beyond the Coastalscapes: Preindustrial Social and Political Networks in East Africa
Hearthholds of mobile money in western Kenya
Kenyans use mobile money services to transfer money to friends and relatives via mobile phone text messaging. Kenya's M-Pesa is one of the most successful examples of digital money for financial inclusion. This article uses social network analysis and ethnographic information to examine ties to and through women in 12 mobile money transfer networks of kin, drawn from field data collected in 2012, 2013, and 2014. The social networks are based on r…
The Early Later Stone Age in East Africa: Excavations and Lithic Assemblages from Lukenya Hill
It is easy for women to ask: Gender and digital finance in Kenya
This article examines the role of gender in the use of digital finance in Kenya, including the well-known case of mobile money but also the emerging use of smartphone apps, payment tills, digital credit services, and digital fund-raising computer programs. Development professionals have explicitly feminist goals in bringing digital finance to women in the Global South. In several recent reports, they outline the belief that gender norms are a bar…
Embodied value: Wealth-in-people
In a world of social inequality, health disparities, and poverty, the economic value of people remains unrecognized, undervalued, and exploited. Recently, the ongoing conflict between capitalist markets and human value came to the fore again during the coronavirus pandemic, when many health systems were unprepared. In the United States, business and government leaders feared that quarantines would damage the economy. Their public statements urgin…
What Is a Hunter-Gatherer? Variation in the Archaeological Record of Eastern and Southern Africa
The Development and Collapse of Precolonial Ethnic Mosaics in Tsavo, Kenya
Archaeologists and historians have long believed that little interaction existed between Iron Age cities of the Kenya Coast and their rural hinterlands. Ongoing archaeological and anthropological research in Tsavo, Southeast Kenya, shows that Tsavo has been continuously inhabited at least since the early Holocene. Tsavo peoples made a living by foraging, herding, farming, and producing pottery and iron, and in the Iron Age were linked to global m…
Money, Mobile Money and Rituals in Western Kenya: The Contingency Fund and the Thirteenth Cow
This article, based on fieldwork in Western Kenya from 2012 to 2016, describes how life cycle rituals collect and distribute different forms of money, including land, property, personhood, animals, cash, and digital moneys. It specifically examines a ritual coming of age for adolescent boys. By organizing multiple forms of money relative to the phases of a human life, the past, and the future, these rituals serve to manage and transfer wealth acr…
Finance and care
Crowdfunding care in Kenya
Crowdfunding to support personal and medical needs has risen in popularity in recent years. Many sociologists are critical of needy individuals’ turn to online fundraising, seeing it as a response to deficits in health care and social protection, and arguing that it may widen social inequalities. Most of these studies have taken place in the United States, China, and Great Britain. This paper explores crowdfunding in sub-Saharan Africa, offering …
Hunter–Gatherer Land Use Patterns in Later Stone Age East Africa
Iron technology in East Africa: Symbolism, science, and archaeology
The Early Later Stone Age in East Africa: Excavations and Lithic Assemblages from Lukenya Hill
What Is a Hunter-Gatherer? Variation in the Archaeological Record of Eastern and Southern Africa
The Development and Collapse of Precolonial Ethnic Mosaics in Tsavo, Kenya
Archaeologists and historians have long believed that little interaction existed between Iron Age cities of the Kenya Coast and their rural hinterlands. Ongoing archaeological and anthropological research in Tsavo, Southeast Kenya, shows that Tsavo has been continuously inhabited at least since the early Holocene. Tsavo peoples made a living by foraging, herding, farming, and producing pottery and iron, and in the Iron Age were linked to global m…
The Trading of Ancient Glass Beads: New Analytical Data From South Asian and East African Soda–alumina Glass Beads
The occurrence of similar glass beads at archaeological sites in Africa and Asia bears witness to the trade relationship between the two continents. This paper reports elemental analysis results from a recent in‐depth laser ablation – inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (LA–ICP–MS) study of a group of archaeological glass beads with a specific alumina‐rich composition from East Africa, India and Sri Lanka. Based on the concentrations o…
Hunter-Gatherer-Fishers of Eastern and South-Central Africa Since 20,000 Years Ago
A growing number of sites and sequences are now coming together to paint a more complete picture of East African hunter-gatherers of the last 20,000 years. During this period, microlithic technologies became widespread as hunter-gatherers adapted to different environments, ranging from highly mobile hunters of large game to sedentary forest dwellers with broad diets, and semi-sedentary hunter-fisher-gatherers. Other themes that emerge are greater…
Beyond the Coastalscapes: Preindustrial Social and Political Networks in East Africa
Hearthholds of mobile money in western Kenya
Kenyans use mobile money services to transfer money to friends and relatives via mobile phone text messaging. Kenya's M-Pesa is one of the most successful examples of digital money for financial inclusion. This article uses social network analysis and ethnographic information to examine ties to and through women in 12 mobile money transfer networks of kin, drawn from field data collected in 2012, 2013, and 2014. The social networks are based on r…
Mosaics
Mosaics - 1 - Rethinking African connections in Coastal and Hinterland Kenya
Mtwapa
Trade and State Formation in Ancient East African Coast and Southern Zambezia
Social Networks of Mobile Money in Kenya
With mobile money technologies, people use mobile phones to send money to friends and relatives, connect to bank accounts, and make payments. This research examines the role of mobile money in Kenyans’ social and economic networks. Research reported was conducted in Bungoma and Trans-Nzoia Counties in Kenya, and among Kenyans living in Chicago, Illinois in the summer of 2012.Although mobile money services are often described as a form of “banking…
Money, Mobile Money and Rituals in Western Kenya: The Contingency Fund and the Thirteenth Cow
This article, based on fieldwork in Western Kenya from 2012 to 2016, describes how life cycle rituals collect and distribute different forms of money, including land, property, personhood, animals, cash, and digital moneys. It specifically examines a ritual coming of age for adolescent boys. By organizing multiple forms of money relative to the phases of a human life, the past, and the future, these rituals serve to manage and transfer wealth acr…
It is easy for women to ask: Gender and digital finance in Kenya
This article examines the role of gender in the use of digital finance in Kenya, including the well-known case of mobile money but also the emerging use of smartphone apps, payment tills, digital credit services, and digital fund-raising computer programs. Development professionals have explicitly feminist goals in bringing digital finance to women in the Global South. In several recent reports, they outline the belief that gender norms are a bar…
Embodied value: Wealth-in-people
In a world of social inequality, health disparities, and poverty, the economic value of people remains unrecognized, undervalued, and exploited. Recently, the ongoing conflict between capitalist markets and human value came to the fore again during the coronavirus pandemic, when many health systems were unprepared. In the United States, business and government leaders feared that quarantines would damage the economy. Their public statements urgin…
Legacies, logics, labors of love: Essays on the economic anthropology of Jane Guyer
We write to note the passing of world-renowned Africanist and economic anthropologist Jane Isabel Guyer, who died in Davis, California, on January 17, 2024, from complications from dementia. Born in Dunoon, Scotland, on New Year's Eve in 1943, she had just turned 80. Jane earned a PhD in anthropology from the University of Rochester in 1972 and went on to teach at Boston University, Harvard, Northwestern, and, finally, Johns Hopkins, from which s…
Finance and care
Crowdfunding care in Kenya
Crowdfunding to support personal and medical needs has risen in popularity in recent years. Many sociologists are critical of needy individuals’ turn to online fundraising, seeing it as a response to deficits in health care and social protection, and arguing that it may widen social inequalities. Most of these studies have taken place in the United States, China, and Great Britain. This paper explores crowdfunding in sub-Saharan Africa, offering …
Feasting in the Late Swahili: Zooarchaeological Remains from the Friday Mosque Complex at Mtwapa, Kenya
Feasting played key roles in Swahili society during the medieval (c. 800–1500 CE) and colonial (c. 1500–1963 CE) periods, contributing to sociopolitical transformation and Islamic practice. However, the zooarchaeological signatures of feasting in the Swahili context remain poorly studied. Here, we report faunal remains recovered from the Friday Congregation Mosque Complex at Mtwapa to examine feasting and commemorative practices during the 15th–s…
Archaeology (8 works) · Geography (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Archaeology and Rock Art Studies (6 works) · Economics (6 works) · Business (5 works) · Microfinance and Financial Inclusion (5 works) · Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology (5 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (4 works)