Julia Hampton

Julia Hampton is a DPhil candidate whose project examines the making and legitimation of a Special Economic Zone in South Africa. Based on seven months of ethnographic fieldwork, her thesis investigates how in a context of chronic long-term unemployment, an intervention aimed to foster market inclusion ends up reproducing and legitimising poverty and inequality. She asks why, if a programme fails to create meaningful results on its own terms, do diverse groups of actors participate, and with what effects? The thesis draws together economic anthropology and sociology with the anthropology of the state, to make a novel contribution to critical understandings of the effects of economics in the constitution of the state, with a focus on how economic knowledge is legitimised by diverse actors, and with what effects for the lives of the poor, in practice.  Julia's research and studies have been supported by the Rhodes Trust, the Skye Foundation, and St Edmund Hall's William R Miller Postgraduate Scholarship. 

She joined ODID in 2019 as a Rhodes Scholar to pursue an MPhil in Development Studies. Her MPhil thesis examined the politics of South Africa’s sovereign credit rating downgrades to 'junk status' as a window into African financialisation and the slippage between technical and moral framings of the economy. Prior to Oxford, Julia completed an Honours degree in Economics at the University of Cape Town, where her interdisciplinary econometrics thesis investigated the socioeconomic implications of witchcraft beliefs in an informal settlement. She also holds a Bachelor of Arts in English, Economics, and Economic History from UCT. Julia has also been involved in research and technical consultancy work for the South African government, wider policy research focussed on Africa and was the Executive Director of a Non-Profit organisation that worked on small enterprise development in Cape Town.