Elaine Rosa Salo

Elaine Rosa Salo (1962 – 13 August 2016) was a South African anthropologist, scholar and activist, who specialised in gender studies and African feminism. She taught at the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town, the University of Pretoria, and, until her death from cancer, at the University of Delaware.

Early life and education Salo was born in 1962 in Kimberley, South Africa, grew up under apartheid. She was a "token" black student in an otherwise White-majority university: the university was located in a White Group Area. Having been awarded a scholarship, she studied international development at Clark University in Massachusetts, United States: she graduated with a Master of Arts (MA) degree in 1986. Also with a scholarship, she studied anthropology at Emory University in Georgia, United States, graduating with a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degree in 2004: her doctoral thesis concerned gendered roles in the Manenberg Township of Cape Town, South Africa.

Academic career Salo taught at universities in South Africa and in the United States. She lectured at the University of the Western Cape from 1988 to 1999; the University of Cape Town from 2000 to 2009; and the University of Pretoria from 2009 to 2013, where she was director of its Institute for Women's & Gender Studies. From 2013, until her death in 2016, she was an associate professor in political science, international relations, and women & gender studies at the University of Delaware.

Her anthropological and ethnological research was focused on African women (including gender studies, African feminism, patriarchy and masculinity, and motherhood), particularly in the township of her doctorate (Manenberg). Her research and teaching also extended to water politics, women's movements, and the anthropology of gender and sexuality.

Personal life Salo was married to Colin Miller, and together they had two children.

Salo had survived breast cancer, but it returned in the year before her death. She died on 13 August 2016, in Newark, Delaware, USA, aged 54.

Selected works