Ugwuanyi, J. Kelechi

J. Kelechi Ugwuanyi is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Global Heritage Lab, University of Bonn, Germany. He is a senior lecturer in the Department of Archaeology and Tourism, University of Nigeria, Nsukka. Kelechi had his PhD in heritage studies at the University of York, UK. His research interest is critical heritage studies, cultural landscapes, posthumanism, Anthropocene, museum, indigenous knowledge systems, world heritage, and contemporary archaeology. His past research explored human and nonhuman relational ontologies among the Igbo of Nigeria focusing on the relationships between humans and trees and between humans and animals in the context of posthuman discourse and the climate emergency in the Anthropocene age. His research in Bonn revisits the originating communities of ethnographic archives in Europe collected from Africa during colonialism to re-engage members of the descendant communities to understand the affordances and changing significance of the archival materials/knowledge in the present. He plans to examine this through the lenses of the interactions between people, landscape and culture. Kelechi is a co-editor of the Journal of African Cultural Heritage Studies. He sits on the editorial board of the Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory book series published by the Archaeopress in Oxford. He is an AHP fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies and a fellow and alumnus of the CAA-Getty International Program under the College Arts Association in the USA.

 Research interest

Heritage studies, cultural landscapes, posthumanism, Anthropocene, indigenous knowledge systems, and contemporary archaeology

Mentoring (PhD students and masters)

Two masters students

Consultancy

• Coordinator, Council of Mentors, Enugu State Scholarship and Education Loans Board (ESSELB), 2020 to present.
• Member of the board of trustees, Charly Mba Educational Foundation, Nigeria, 2020 - present.

Editorial or advisory boards

• Co-editor of the Journal of African Cultural Heritage Studies.
• Editorial board member: Studies in Contemporary and Historical Archaeology in Theory book series published by the Archaeopress in Oxford.