Robin Turner

Robin L. Turner is an Associate Professor of Political Science, Chair of the Department of Political Science, Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program, and Coordinator of the African and Black Studies Minor at Butler University in the US A and an honorary research associate of the Society, Work, and Politics Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa. Dr. Turner served as the founding director of the  Social Justice and Diversity Butler University Core Curriculum  requirement from 2017 to 2019.  She earned a master's degree and doctorate in political science at the University of California, Berkeley and a masters degree in social science (African politics) from the University of Cape Town (South Africa). Her research, writing, and teaching span multiple fields, including political science, gender studies, African studies, development studies, tourism studies, political ecology, and geography.

Dr. Turner's research focuses principally on how public policies shape rural political economies, influence identities, and affect people’s behavior in southern Africa. She uses interviews, ethnography, and archival research to examine the interplay between state policies and local practices over time and to look closely at how past and present ways of structuring property and authority shape local political economies and influence constructions of identity. She has published on topics ranging from the politics of tradition; dispossession, property, and nature tourism; and field research to decolonial pedagogy in journals including Africa Spectrum, Development and Change, Journal of Modern African Studies, Peacebuilding, and Qualitative and Multi-Method Research.  

Dr. Turner teaches courses that help students better understand the perspectives, experiences, and political strategies of historically marginalized people in Africa, the United States, and elsewhere in the world. Her courses contribute to the political science major and minor, to the core curriculum, and to several interdisciplinary programs She led the the development of a new Global and Historical Studies course centered on the question, "What is Freedom," with grant support from the National Endowment for the Humanities,  

Her recent course offerings include:

GHS 206-SJD Resistance and Reaction: Resistance and Reaction: Colonialism and Post-Colonialism in Africa 

GHS 210-SJD Freedom and Movement in the Transatlantic World 

PO 151 Introduction to Comparative Politics

PO 350 African Politics

PO 351-SJD Politics of Gender & Sexuality in Africa 

PO 352 Comparative Political Economy 

PO 354-SJD Environmental Justice 

PO 490 Senior Seminar on Women and Politics across the World 

SW 245-PO Politics from the Margins