I obtained my doctorate at the University of Zimbabwe in 2010 where I taught for several years before moving to the Midlands State University in Gweru and Zvishavane in the same country in 2012. In 2019 I was appointed to the National University of Lesotho, Roma and between 2021 and 2022 I taught at the University of Eswatini, Kwaluseni.

I am a Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies (African Humanities Program) and have also held various Research Fellowships at the University of Edinburgh (2007) and the University of Stellenbosch (2012-14). In 2017 I was the Inaugural Fellow of the Oxford-Africa Initiative at St Peters College, Oxford.

My research interests stretch across themes and timelines from ‘pre-colonial’ communities to liberation movements in Central and Southern Africa. My work on Zimbabwe is the result of years spent collecting oral traditions and oral literature among communities that typically identify as ‘Shona’ but draw upon rich histories of interaction with various other identities over time. I am in the process of completing a monograph that synthesises these experiences prior to Zimbabwe’s colonial encounter and this drives my current investigations into cases of territoriality and land restitution in modern Zimbabwe based on so-called ‘pre-colonial’ claims and validations.

I have also collaborated with various organisations to collect, archive and digitise oral histories and records of Zimbabwe’s war of independence. Some of the projects I have led and coordinated include the Aluka/JSTOR ‘Struggles for Freedom in Southern Africa’ and the ‘SADC Secretariat Hashim Mbita Project’ on the Liberation History of Southern Africa. From these collections I have focused on the international networks of the liberation movements and the life of common soldiers in guerilla training camps of the Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) in Ghana, Tanzania, Mozambique and Zambia.