John Aerni-Flessner

(He/him)

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I am a historian of southern Africa, focusing primarily on Lesotho and South Africa. My first book, Dreams for Lesotho: Independence, Foreign Assistance, and Development, explained how Basotho came to see the concepts of development and independence as intertwined. This helped them make development 'their own' even when it came with many strings attached, and quite often failed to achieve its stated aim of poverty reduction.

I was the lead editor (along with Drs. Charles Fogelman and Nthabiseng Mokoena-Mokhali) of the "Historical Dictionary of Lesotho, 3rd Edition" and an editor of "Migration, Borders, and Borderlands: Making National Identity in Southern African Communities" (with Drs. Munyaradzi Mushonga, Chitja Twala, and Grey Magaiza), both published in 2024.

My current project is writing a book-length history of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP). It will (hopefully) be forthcoming in 2025 from a South African publisher.

I also conduct research with my American students on local histories in Lansing, Michigan, including the childhood of Malcolm X in Lansing and the history of redlining and residential segregation in the city and region.

Experience

  • 2019–present
    Research fellow, University of the Free State
  • 2019–present
    Associate professor, Michigan State University
  • 2014–2019
    Assistant professor, Michigan State University
  • 2011–2014
    Assistant Professor, SUNY Cortland

Education

  • 2011 
    Washington University in St. Louis, PhD/African History
  • 2001 
    Grinnell College, BA History/Secondary Education

Publications

  • 2024
    Historical Dictionary of Lesotho, 3rd Edition, Rowman and Littlefield
  • 2024
    Lesotho and the QwaQwa Ski Resort, 1975–82: Border Disputes and South Africa’s Increasingly Deadly Responses, Journal of African History
  • 2024
    Basotho and the Bantustans: Long-Term Impacts of Historical Borders on Borderlands Communities in QwaQwa and Lesotho, South African Historical Journal
  • 2024
    Migration, Borders, and Borderlands: Making National Identity in Southern African Communities, Lexington Books
  • 2023
    Development in Lesotho, Oxford Reserch Encyclopedia of African History
  • 2022
    A Transnational History of Stock Theft on the Lesotho-South Africa Border, Nineteenth Century to 1994, South African Historical Journal
  • 2021
    Digitally Documenting Urban Renewal in Lansing, 1930s-1960s” , Michigan Historical Review
  • 2021
    Bargaining with Land: Borders, Bantustans, and Sovereignty in 1970s and 1980s Southern Africa, Journal of Southern African Studies
  • 2018
    Passports, Citizenship, Residency, and Asylum: The Meanings of Decolonisation in Lesotho, Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History
  • 2018
    Dreams for Lesotho: Independence, Foreign Assistance, and Development, University of Notre Dame Press
  • 2018
    2006, Lesotho: On the Wrong Side of Development, Introduction, Southern African Muckraking
  • 2017
    Self-Help Development Projects and Conceptions of Independence in Lesotho, 1950s-1970s, International Journal of African Historical Studies
  • 2017
    Introduction: Localizing the History of Development, International Journal of African Historical Studies
  • 2015
    The Specter of Communism and Local Politics in Lesotho, 1952-1970 , Peripheries of the Cold War
  • 2015
    Homemakers, Communists and Refugees: Smuggling Anti-Apartheid Refugees in Rural Lesotho in the 1960s and 1970s, Wagadu: A Journal of Transnational Women’s and Gender Studies
  • 2014
    Development, Politics, and Public Perceptions of Independence in Lesotho, 1960-1975, Journal of African History

Grants and Contracts

  • 2021
    Fulbright Scholar Award
    Role:
    Bloemfontein, South Africa
    Funding Source:
    Fulbright Commission
  • 2008
    Fulbright-Hays Dissertation Award
    Role:
    Maseru, Lesotho
    Funding Source:
    Fulbright Commission

Contact John for

  • General
  • Media request
  • Speaking request
  • Consulting / Advising
  • Research collaboration
  • Research supervision