{"id":2,"date":"2012-09-04T13:39:49","date_gmt":"2012-09-04T17:39:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/template\/?page_id=2"},"modified":"2026-03-19T08:54:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T12:54:13","slug":"home","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/bchalfin\/","title":{"rendered":"Home"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n<section class=\"fullwidth-text-block\">\r\n\t<div class=\"container px-0 pt-5\">\r\n\t\t<div class=\"row align-items-start\">\r\n\t\t\t<div class=\"col-12\">\r\n\t\t\t\t\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Background<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Brenda Chalfin is Professor of Anthropology\u00a0 at the University of Florida where she served as Director of the Center for African Studies from 2016-2022. Chalfin is the author of 3 books: <em>Waste Works: Vital Politics in Urban Ghana<\/em> (Duke, 2023); <em>Neoliberal Frontiers: An Ethnography of Sovereignty in West Africa<\/em> (Chicago 2010) and <em>Shea Butter Republic<\/em> (Routledge 2004) and numerous peer-reviewed articles. Her research examines state processes, border regions, urbanization, public life and the governance of material flows, from plastics and waste, to water, off-shore oil and indigenous commodities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>Professor Chalfin\u2019s recent work explores the politics of urban form through the case study of popular responses to infrastructural breakdown in Ghana\u2019s city of Tema. She is currently pursuing a new project in partnership with colleagues in Ghana and Uganda addressing plastics, water supply and urban development. During the 2022-23 academic year Chalfin was on sabbatical at Aarhus University as visiting faculty member in Global Studies and collaborating with Aarhus School of Architecture to advance her knowledge of studio and design-based inquiry to inform Anthropology teaching and research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>Chalfin has been affiliated with University of Ghana, Stellenbosch University (South Africa), Harvard University Radcliffe Institute, Institute for Advanced Study (Princeton), and received grants from US Department of Education, Social Science Research Council, National Science Foundation and Wenner-Gren. Chalfin has supervised 20 PhD degrees in Anthropology and mentored and recruited numerous African nationals in graduate study at University of Florida and hosted 3 Fulbright scholars during her tenure as Director of the Center of African Studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/brendachalfin.wordpress.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Personal Website\u00a0<\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Contact Information<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Office: 427 Grinter Hall<br>\nPhone:\u00a0352-392-2183<br>\nEmail: <a href=\"mailto:bchalfin@ufl.edu\">bchalfin@ufl.edu<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n<p>Mailing address:<br>\nDepartment of Anthropology<br>\nUniversity of Florida<br>\nP.O. Box 117305<br>\nGainesville, FL 32611-7305<\/p>\n\n\n\r\n\t\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t\t<\/div>\r\n\t<\/div>\r\n<\/section>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1212,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"featured_post":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-2","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/bchalfin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/bchalfin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/bchalfin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/bchalfin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/bchalfin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/bchalfin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":202,"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/bchalfin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2\/revisions\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/people.clas.ufl.edu\/bchalfin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}