The three expedition leaders include our South African program designer Ms. Mona-Lisa Bango, ECU faculty and scholar of African history and Dr. Jarvis L. Hargrove, and Dr. Lynn Harris. This dynamic team is leading a compelling ECU Summer Study Abroad experience in South Africa in Summer 2024. Dr. Hargrove’s expertise in the histories of Africa, slavery, and the African Diaspora is invaluable to exploring the complex culture and history of South Africa. Dr. Harris is a native of Cape Town. Four generations of her family lived around the country in occupations such as pony express riders, mining prospectors, dairy and wine farmers, and medical physicians. She attended high school in Cape Town and graduated from Stellenbosch University with an Honors degree majoring in Anthropology, Archaeology and African Studies. During the 1980s she was employed as an archaeologist with the South African Museum and a historic shipwreck Inspector for the National Monuments Council. Currently part of her family still resides in Cape Town. Her sister, Kirsten Slater, is a local artist and her nephews, Matthew and Robbie work in local business and wildlife conservation initiatives.
Our South African guide is Mona-Lisa Bango.
I am a co-founder of a civic organisation ‘The Nomzamo Club’ and have dedicated over 5 years to social change. This has granted me a membership to the World Economic Forum’s Global Shapers Community while I was working in the FinTech industry as a Senior data and research specialist. I am passionate about South Africa and social change which led me to my Program Designer role at EDU Africa.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
Jarvis L. Hargrove (Ph.D. Howard University) is an Associate Professor of History and serves as the Co-Director of the African and African American Studies Program. He brings substantial experience teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in Africa, African Diaspora, Atlantic and African American history. He has published on several topics including slavery, slave trading, and migration, and he is currently working a new manuscript, which is an analysis of Ashanti Pioneer/Pioneer Newspaper published in the Gold Coast and Ghana prior to and after independence arrived for the nation. He has received grants to study African American emigration overseas to Liberia and to help expand the Digital Library on American Slavery access to sources in Pitt, Greene, and Edgecombe Counties. Prior to coming to East Carolina University, Dr. Hargrove worked in the Department of History at North Carolina Central University.
Lynn Harris (PhD University of South Carolina) has a background in nautical archaeology, terrestrial archaeology, submerged cultural resource management and maritime history. Areas of fieldwork experience and research interest include the American South, Africa, and the Caribbean. Her particular interest is the African diaspora and labor history. She teaches courses in underwater archaeology methods, maritime material culture, watercraft recording, and European maritime history with an inter-disciplinary Atlantic World perspective. Teaching assignments have included offering summer abroad study programs in Africa. Harris has also directed and co-directed underwater archaeology field schools for graduate students in a variety of locations. She has published on vernacular watercraft, colonial period shipwrecks, public outreach, maritime heritage tourism, and international collaboration in underwater archaeology initiatives.
Harris’s Grandfather, Dr. Ryno Smit, was a well-known public medical practitioner and District Surgeon in the Transkei during the 1940s. SEE REPORT ON MEDICAL CONDITIONS TO SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF RACE RELATIONS IN 1943 grandfathers-papers