Davide Chinigò is Senior Assistant Professor in African History and Institutions at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Bologna, and a Research Fellow in the Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology at Stellenbosch University. He was a postdoctoral fellow with the SARChI Chair in the Sociology of Land, Environment and Sustainable Development from 2016 to 2018 and has remained affiliated with the department as a Research Fellow since 2019.

His research examines the political and social history of development, science and technology in Africa. A central strand of his work investigates the history, politics and territorial consequences of astronomy and space-science infrastructures in South Africa. Since 2016, he has conducted extensive archival and ethnographic research in the Karoo and Northern Cape, focusing particularly on the Square Kilometre Array and MeerKAT projects. His work considers how radio astronomy, satellite tracking, environmental conservation and global scientific cooperation intersect with questions of land, local development, inequality and the longer histories of colonialism and apartheid.

His broader research addresses state and nation-building, agrarian transformation, international cooperation and the politics of energy transition in Africa. He has conducted fieldwork in Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi and South Africa and combines historical and archival research with qualitative and ethnographic methods. He is also Book Reviews Editor of The Journal of Modern African Studies.

Selected publications:

Chinigò, D. (2026) ‘Towards Constructive Engagement: The Political History of U.S. Satellite Tracking Facilities in Apartheid South Africa, 1961–1975’, Rivista italiana di storia internazionale, IX(1), pp. 45–76. doi:10.30461/120923.

Chinigò, D. (2025) ‘The Geopolitics of Space Exploration in Africa: South Africa and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Project’, Territory, Politics, Governance, pp. 1–17. doi:10.1080/21622671.2025.2574665.

Nieber, H. and Chinigò, D. (2025) ‘Heads in the Stars, Feet on the Ground: Scale and Astronomy Initiatives in Southern Africa’, Cultural Anthropology, 40(4), pp. 571–596. doi:10.14506/ca40.4.01.

Chinigò, D. and Walker, C. (2025) ‘Knowledge Frontiers: Shaping African Futures through the Square Kilometre Array’. In: Praet, I. and Pitrou, P. (eds.) Otherwhere Ethnography: An Introduction to Outer Space Studies. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 88–106.

Chinigò, D. and Nieber, H. (2025) ‘Imaginaries of Outer Space from Africa: Astronomy Infrastructure in South Africa and Madagascar’. In: Gorbanenko, J., Jeevendrampillai, D. and Kozel, A. (eds.) Exploring Ethnography of Outer Space: Methods and Perspectives. New York: Routledge, pp. 57–76. doi:10.4324/9781003437956-4.