Michaeline A. Crichlow

Michaeline A. Crichlow is a Professor in the Department of African and African American Studies at Duke University, affiliated with Trinity College of Arts & Sciences. Her work focuses on globalization, postcolonial critique, decolonial theory, and the intersections of race, space, and development across the Caribbean, Africa, and the Global South. She has held leadership roles including Chair of the African & African American Studies Department (2021-2022) and previously served as Professor of Sociology (2012-2019).

Her research explores citizenship, nationalism, and diasporic claims on states, with recent emphasis on decoloniality through global*Blackness frameworks. Key interests include the impacts of neoliberalism, agrarian politics, and cultural resistance in postcolonial contexts. She is the author of seminal works such as Globalization and the Post-Creole Imagination (2009) and Decoloniality in the Break of Global Blackness (2025).

Her artistic contributions include films like Raising Cane: Recycling Sweetness and Power in Modern Jamaica (2015) and Human Traffic: Past and Present (2011), blending academic inquiry with creative storytelling. Awards include the Trent Award (2008) and grants from the Government of Jamaica and Duke’s Franklin Center.

Crichlow teaches courses on migration, decolonization, and climate change, including Displacements: Migration and Human Trafficking and Climate Change, Decolonization, and Global Blackness. Her work bridges interdisciplinary scholarship, activism, and global policy dialogues.