Yasmina Martin

Yasmina Martin's picture
Research interests: 

African history, black internationalism, global Cold War, South Africa, Tanzania

Bio: 
My dissertation, “A Sometimes Home: The African National Congress in Tanzanian Exile, 1958-1992,” studies the experiences of South African African National Congress (ANC) exiles across Tanzania. Moving from rural guerilla camps to the urban center of Dar es Salaam, my research considers the stakes faced by Tanzania in remaining non-aligned while assisting liberation movements vying for support from Cold War powers. “A Sometimes Home” argues that the futures of postcolonial Tanzanians and exiled southern Africans were entangled during crucial years of Tanzanian nation-building and South African exile. A mix of social and political histories, my research deepens our understanding of the Global Cold War in East Africa, Pan-Africanism as foreign policy, and liberation movements in exile. 
 
My research draws from state archives in Tanzania, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Alongside these materials, I make use of print media in English and Swahili, memoirs, personal papers, and liberation movement archives. I have also conducted interviews with former members of the ANC-in-exile, Tanzanian journalists and political actors, and Tanzanians who lived and worked with South African exiles.
 
My broader research and teaching interests include Modern African history, post-colonial African politics, South African history, and histories of Black radicalism. My research has been supported by the Fulbright-IIE, the American Historical Association, and the Gilder Lehrman and MacMillan Centers at Yale University. My previous research, supported by a Fulbright grant to South Africa (2015-2016) tracked the legacies of Simon Nkoli, a South African gay rights and anti-apartheid activist. Using the archival materials at the Gay and Lesbian Archive in Johannesburg, I wrote ” ‘Now I Am Not Afraid’: Simon Nkoli, Queer Utopias and Transnational Solidarity,” which details Simon Nkoli’s legacy of queer activism through scholar José Muñoz’s framework of queer utopia, which was published in the Journal of Southern African Studies in 2020. 
 
I received my BA in Black Studies and French from Amherst College in 2014. I am also a former educator with classroom experience with history students from 7th grade to the undergraduate level. Please reach out to me if you have any questions about the history program!