Experts on countries of origin by country

Rose (Rosabelle) Boswell is an anthropologist. From 2021 she has served as the South African Research Chair in Ocean Cultures and Heritage. She has an MA Anthropology from the University of Cape Town and a PhD from Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. She is author of several books and anthologies. She has conducted anthropological research in Mauritius, Madagascar, Seychelles, Zanzibar, South Africa, Kenya and Namibia. Since 2008, she has assisted in immigration asylum cases by drafting Country of Origin expert reports. She is currently writing a new book entitled Humanizing the Blue Era in Africa. She also conceived a science-to-business project to mainstream cultural heritage in ocean management, called The Blue Values Journey Project. Her research tackles a diversity of issues (i.e., inequality, gender discrimination, race, socioeconomic change) arising from the emerging social worlds of southern Africa and the southwest Indian Ocean.  

Luke Freeman, PhD, is a leading expert on the culture and politics of Madagascar. He has brought this expertise to roles as a tenured professor at the University of London (LSE & UCL), as a special advisor to former president Marc Ravalomanana, and as a social and political risk analyst to the Madagascar extractive sector. He has also filled leading roles in the development and humanitarian sector, notably as a pioneer of the application of Free, Prior and Informed Consent (FPIC) for indigenous peoples in the tropical timber sector. Luke's recent responsibilities include Director of Social Performance at Rio Tinto Madagascar, Director of Social Policy at UNICEF Madagascar and Head of Social Behaviour Change at CRS Madagascar. He has also worked as an advertising strategist for the WPP group and a leadership coach in the university sector.

Dr. Jean-Baptiste Pettier is a professor of cultural and social anthropology of East Asia at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität in Germany. There, he leads an interdisciplinary Elite Master Program dedicated to the study of decision-making across Asia. He is a French social and cultural anthropologist whose interdisciplinary background includes studies in political science, sociology, and Chinese studies. He has worked in France, Germany, and the US. His primary research activities focus on the subjects of arranged marriage and human-nonhuman relationships, as well as the illicit wildlife trade. He has a theoretical focus on moral sentiments, ethics, and morality in both interpersonal and human-nonhuman relationships, and how they relate to historical, political, and economic conditions. His long-term research field sites are based in China and Madagascar.