Email: bent.olsen@wits.ac.za

Dr Bent Steenberg Olsen holds a PhD degree in medical anthropology from Danish Roskilde University’s Doctoral School of Society and Globalisation (2013). His research interests lie mainly within the fields of public health and international political economy coupled with anthropology and sociology.  In particular, he has conducted extensive fieldwork in Mozambican AIDS treatment clinics studying international policies vis-à-vis local realities and experiences of care and illness. He joined the South African University of the Witwatersrand in 2015 (until 2019) with a research project investigating HIV/AIDS stigma and treatment-seeking behaviour amongst Mozambican refugees in Johannesburg. He is based at the African Centre for Society and Migration (ACMS) in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Email: elisio.macamo@unibas.ch

Dr. Elisio Macamo is a Mozambican national who, between 1985 and 1990, worked for the Mozambican state; first as a translator and interpreter in the National Planning Commission and later as private secretary to the Ambassador of Mozambique and culture and education attaché at the Embassy of Mozambique in London. He has also been a visiting professor at Eduardo Mondlane University (between 2002 and 2006). He has been a regular contributor to the daily newspaper “Notícias” and a columnist with the monthly magazine “Prestígio”. He also conducted research on natural disasters, political culture and development and has carried out consultancy assignments on poverty alleviation, local development and democratization. Between 2002 and 2005, Dr. Macamo was a country risk expert for Swisspeace (Switzerland) and since 2006 has been writing updades on Mozambique’s political situation for the “Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung” in Germany.

Email: hmk@diis.dk

Dr Helene Maria Kyed, having completed a Masters degree in Anthropology from Aarhus University and a PhD from Roskilde University in Denmark, is now a senior researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies and has done research on Mozambique since 2002. She has worked on post-war state formation processes in the rural areas, looking particularly at the role of traditional leaders and decentralization processes. More recently, she has done research on local justice enforcement and policing, particularly community policing. She has contributed to policy debates about customary law and legal pluralism in Mozambique, and co-authored two books: “The Dynamics of Legal Pluralism in Mozambique”, and “State Recognition of Local Authorities and Public participation. Experiences, Obstacles and Possibilities in Mozambique” (published in both English and Portuguese).