Karin Pallaver

Karin Pallaver joined the British Museum in 2011, having previously taught at the University of Bologna in Italy.

She joined the British Museum in 2011, being previously Post-doctoral Fellow and Assistant Lecturer in African History at the University of Bologna, Italy.

Karin is currently working as a researcher on the Money in Africa project. She is investigating the introduction of colonial currencies in Africa from 1890s until the First World War, with a comparative perspective between western and eastern Africa.

Her research interests lie in the social and economic history of nineteenth and early twentieth century East Africa. Major themes linked to her research are pre-colonial African trade, pre-colonial African currencies, nineteenth-century urbanism and German and British colonialism in East Africa.

She is part of the "Global Collaboratory on the History of Labour Relations 1500-2000" Institute of Social History, University of Amsterdam, of the "International cooperative research on the complementarity among monies caused by temporality, seasonality, and locality in making transactions”, University of Tokyo and she is co-worker on the project ‘Money as social circuit: interdisciplinary research on the complementarity between anonymous currency and named credit'.

Contact

kpallaver@thebritishmuseum.ac.uk
+44 (0)20 7323 8173

Current projects

• Money in Africa

Recent publications

K. Pallaver, 'From Venice to East Africa: History, Uses and Meanings of Glass Beads', in K. Hofmeester and B.S. Grewe (eds.) Luxury in Global Perspective: Commodities and Practices, c. 1600-2000 (Oxford and New York, Berghahan, forthcoming 2011).

K. Pallaver, 'Paul Emil Lettow von Vorbeck', in Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and Emmanuel K. Akyeampong (eds.), Dictionary of African Biography (Oxford and New York, Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2011).

K. Pallaver, Un'altra Zanzibar. Schiavitù, colonialismo e urbanizzazione a Tabora (1840-1916) (Milan, FrancoAngeli, 2010).

K. Pallaver, 'Donkeys, Oxen and Elephants: in Search for an Alternative to Human Porters in 19th century Tanzania', Africa (Rome), vol. 65:1-4 (2010), pp. 289-309.

K. Pallaver, ''I fastidiosi gusti delle donne africane': aspetti della moda nell'Africa orientale del XIX secolo' in G. Parodi da Passano (ed.), African Fashion, special issue of Africa e Mediterraneo, 69-70 (2010), pp. 41-46.

K. Pallaver, 'Aspetti del colonialismo tedesco in Africa e tendenze recenti della storiografia' in P. Capuzzo e C. Giorgi (eds.), Centro e periferia come categorie storiografiche (Rome, Carocci, 2009), pp. 149-163.

K. Pallaver, '‘A Recognized Currency in Beads’: Glass Beads as Money in Nineteenth-century East Africa: the Central Caravan Road', in C. Eagleton, H. Fuller and J. Perkins (eds.), Money in Africa (London, British Museum Research Publications, 2009), pp. 20-29.

K. Pallaver, Lungo le piste d'Africa. Commerci locali e strategie imperiali in Tanzania (sec. XIX-XX), (Rome, Carocci, 2008).

K. Pallaver, 'The German Maps at the East Africana Collection, University Library of Dar es Salaam', History in Africa, 33(2006), pp. 495-498.

K. Pallaver, 'Nyamwezi Participation in Nineteenth-century East African Trade: some Evidence from Missionary Sources', Africa (Rome), vol. 61: 3-4 (2006), pp. 513-531.