This PhD-project, Making a home: An ethnographic study examining the production of ‘home’ and urban futures in Johannesburg, South Africa, seeks to explore home-making and urban enclaving in Johannesburg, South Africa. The project will investigate the dialectic relations between people and the material world as a means to understand how processes of enclaving work to transform urban structures and everyday practices, particularly along gendered lines. In order to examine the sociality dimensions of enclaving the study is specifically concerned with the materialities and aesthetics of 'home-making'.

The research will investigate how people live in the city and the visions people have for their own future and the future of the city. Questions I aim to explore include: 1) How do people look at the built environment of the neighbourhood and the city? 2) How do people create their home today and how do they imagine their home in the future? With this focus, the study aims to map out how people conceptualize, are influenced by, and influence processes of enclaving in possibly different ways, and thus trace their imaginaries of urban future(s) and their homes and neighbourhoods, and how these are interlocked with imaginaries and practices of the past and the present.

Conferences and workshop participation

2022 An ethnographic account on the desire for greenery in the affluent northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa. Paper presented at the conference The City is (NOT) a tree: The Urban Ecology of Divided Cities, 5-7th July.

2022 Rethinking ideas about the home through the lens of real estate in Johannesburg, South Africa. Paper presented in panel The City and The Human, at ASAA Conference, 11-16th April.

2021 Kultivering av verdifull natur in Johannesburg, Sør-Afrika (Cultivating valuable nature in Johannesburg, South Africa). Paper presented in panel Klima og miljøkamp: etnografiske nyansar, NAF Conference. University of Bergen, 25th November.

Audiovisual

2022 Imagining the Future City, Video poster SDG-Conference, Bergen, 9-11th November.

Blogs

August 2019 – August 2020. «Livet i en storby: En feltblogg fra Johannesburg». Fieldwork blog with monthly posts.

2019. Sør-Afrika: Hva kan vi lære av et av verdens mest ulike land? (SA: What can we learn from one of the most unequal countries in the world?). Attac Norge 9th December.

Course convenor

SANT150: Akademisk skriving, teori og metode: antropologiske tilnærmingar Autumn 2021 and Autumn 2024

SANT260: Bacheloroppgåve Spring 2022

SANT215: Komparativ regional etnografi: Kina og Sørlige Afrika (course convenor with C. Buckermann) Spring 2021

Tutor

SANT150: Akademisk skriving, teori og metode: antropologiske tilnærmingar Autumn 2020

SANT100: Invitasjon til sosialantropologi Autumn 2017

SANT240: Poverty, Welfare and Marginalisation: An Ethnographic Approach to Modern Urban Life Autumn 2017

Supervision

SANT260: Bacheloroppgåve Spring 2019 and Spring 2022

Academic chapter/article/Conference paper

• Müftüoglu, Ingrid Birce; Knudsen, Ståle; Dale, Ragnhild Freng et al. (2023). Chapter 1. Rethinking Access: Key Methodological Challenges in Studying Energy Companies. (external link)
• Maraire, Oda Eiken; Hugøy, Isabelle Hammerstad (2023). Samfunnsansvar Is Not CSR: Mapping Expectations and Practices of (Corporate) Social Responsibility in Norway. (external link)
• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2023). An Ethnographic Account on the Desire for Greenery in the Affluent Northern Suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa. (external link)

Poster

• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2022). "Imagining the Future City", Video Poster. (external link)
• Eiken, Oda; Müftüoglu, Ingrid Birce; Knudsen, Ståle et al. (2017). Energethics Norwegian energy Companies abroad. (external link)

Academic lecture

• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2022). Cultivating desirable homes through real estate advertisements in the affluent northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa. (external link)
• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2022). Rethinking ideas about the home through the lens of real estate in Johannesburg, South Africa. (external link)
• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2022). Cultivating desirable homes in the affluent northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa. (external link)
• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2022). Moments of becoming: Cultivating desirable imaginaries of urban spaces in the affluent northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa. (external link)
• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2022). An ethnographic account on the desire for greenery in the affluent northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa. (external link)
• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2022). Cultivating desirable homes through property advertisements in the affluent northern suburbs of Johannesburg, South Africa. (external link)
• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2021). Kultivering av verdifull natur in Johannesburg, Sør-Afrika. (external link)
• Müftüoglu, Ingrid Birce; Eiken, Oda; Dale, Ragnhild Freng et al. (2017). Accounting for Energy. (external link)

Feature article

• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2020). Tillit og trygghet er ingen selvfølge. (external link)
• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2019). Sør-Afrika – Hva kan vi lære av et av verdens mest ulike land?. (external link)

Lecture

• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2020). Negotiating urban living and change in Johannesburg - expectations, aesthetics and desires. (external link)
• Maraire, Oda Eiken (2020). Gardens, Parks and Public Enclaves - Perceptions of risk and opportunities. (external link)

Academic article

• Müftüoglu, Ingrid Birce; Knudsen, Ståle; Dale, Ragnhild Freng et al. (2018). Rethinking access. Key methodological challenges in studying energy companies. (external link)

See a complete overview of publications in Cristin.

Oda Eiken Maraire and Isabelle Hugøy (submitted, publication early 2023) "Samfunnsansvar is not CSR: Mapping Expectations and Practices of (Corporate) Social Responsibility in Norway". In Ståle Knudsen (ed.) Corporate social responsibility and the paradoxes of state capitalism. Ethnographies of Norwegian energy and extraction businesses abroad. Oxford: Berghahn Books.

Müftüoglu, Ingrid Birce, Ståle Knudsen, Ragnhild Freng Dale, Oda Eiken, Dinah Rajak, and Siri Lange. 2018. 'Rethinking access: Key methodological challenges in studying energy companies', Energy research & social science, 45: 250-57.

Part of the interdisiplinary research project: "Enclaving: Patterns of global futures in three African cities" (UrbanEnclavingFutures)