Kevin Donovan

Kevin Donovan is a Senior Lecturer in African Studies & International Development at the Centre of African Studies, School of Social and Political Science, University of Edinburgh. His work bridges anthropology and history with political economy and science & technology studies, focusing on East Africa.

• Ph.D. Anthropology & History, University of Michigan
• M.Phil Sociology (Development Studies), University of Cape Town
• B.S.F.S. Science, Technology & International Affairs, Georgetown University

Donovan's research explores the intersections of economic sovereignty, state formation, and technological infrastructures in Africa. His work examines how value is produced, distributed, and contested in postcolonial contexts, with particular attention to monetary systems, financial technologies, and surveillance practices. He employs anthropological and historical methods to investigate how people navigate complex political economies through practices like smuggling, mobile money usage, and informal finance. His approach combines political economy with science and technology studies to understand how technical systems shape social relations and political possibilities.

His recent publications reveal a consistent focus on the political economy of value in African contexts, particularly examining how financial technologies, surveillance systems, and monetary policies reshape citizenship and state-society relations. A clear trajectory emerges from his early work on humanitarian infrastructure and mobile money toward more recent investigations of monetary sovereignty, economic citizenship, and the historical dimensions of value formation in East Africa. His scholarship consistently interrogates the relationship between technical systems and political power, revealing how seemingly neutral technologies become sites of political contestation.

• Principal Investigator: A comparative analysis of water supply schemes in Central African cities (2022)
• Co-investigator: Developing Data? Markets and Politics in a Digital Age (2020-2021)
• Principal Investigator: The Limits of Monetary Sovereignty (2020-2023)

Donovan advises PhD and MSc students in African Studies, Science and Technology Studies, Social Anthropology, and International Development. His supervision interests include African history, political and economic anthropology, states and bureaucracies, markets and capitalism, borders and smuggling, and infrastructure. He has co-convened conversations on data politics in eastern Africa and has advised international organizations on digital data, AI, and surveillance.