Jessica Johnson is a Lecturer in the Department of African Studies and Anthropology at the University of Birmingham. Her research has been published in the journals Africa, the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute and Review of African Political Economy and she is co-editor of Pursuing Justice in Africa: Competing Imaginaries and Contested Practices with George Karekwaivanane (forthcoming). She held the Phyllis and Eileen Gibbs Travelling Research Fellowship in 2014–15 and is an editor of the Journal of Southern African Studies.