Melanie Boehi
Melanie Eva Boehi is a PhD-student at the Centre for African Studies Basel, member of the Basel Graduate School of History and Fellow of the Franz Humer Foundation. She completed an MA in History at the University of the Western Cape in 2011 with an emphasis in visual history and museum and heritage studies. Her interests further concern the history of science, knowledge production and African urban studies. Boehi wrote her MA thesis about the imaging and imagining of the iconic figure of the “Cape Town flower sellers” and how people used this figure as a resource to make life possible in the city of Cape Town in the 20th century.
PhD-Project
Melanie Eva Boehi’s PhD-work (2012-2015) is concerned with the history of the South African botanical complex. It examines the entanglements of botany, horticulture and floriculture and the making of urban space in South Africa in the 20th century. It explores how flowers, floral spaces and practices can contribute to our understanding of history in South Africa and beyond. The beginning of this dissertational project was made possible by a start-up fellowship of the Basel Graduate School of History and the project is generously funded by the Humer Foundation. The project is supervised by Prof. Patrick Harries.
Publications
‘Politricks in the Stadium’, Chimurenga Chronic (Chimurenga vol. 16), 2011.
‘Politics of flower-selling at the Cape’, Cape Times, 22.07.2011, p. 11.
‘Wie aus der Stadt am Kap Kapstadt wurde’, etü HistorikerInnen-Zeitschrift Historisches Seminar Universität Zürich, Feb 2010, pp. 22-25.
