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Qualifications

1999 B.A. (Hons) History (University of Stirling)

2000 M.Sc. African Studies (University of Edinburgh)

2005 Ph.D. African Studies (University of Edinburgh)

Biography

After a period teaching at a secondary school in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania, Tom studied History at the University of Stirling, Scotland, with courses concentrating on pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial central and east Africa. He then moved to Edinburgh and completed the M.Sc. in African Studies at CAS, with a dissertation on women in the informal sector in South Pare, the area of Kilimanjaro where he taught in the mid-90s. Tom then worked on African enterprise development at UNCTAD, Geneva, before undertaking his doctoral studies, also at CAS. His Ph.D., 'Food, Carvings and Shelter: the adoption and appropriation of information and communication technologies in Tanzanian micro and small enterprises', is one of the earliest detailed studies of the effect of mobile phones and the internet on business in an emerging economy, and is listed in the GSMA Development Fund’s Top 20 Research on Economic and Social Impacts of Mobile Phones in Developing Countries. Some of the findings from this study were written up during a postdoctoral fellowship ('Information and Communication Technology in the African Market'), held jointly at the Centre of African Studies and the Institute for the Study of Science, Technology & Innovation. All his funding at CAS was supported by the ESRC, as was his post as advisor on ICT in developing countries at the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Westminster. Tom then moved to GAES at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, where he was a postdoctoral fellow working on 'ICT, Livelihoods and the Millennium Development Goals: Evidence from Africa'. Tom has served as a long-term election observer with The Carter Center for the presidential elections in Ghana and, more recently, as a short-term observer for the European Union Election Observation Mission to Malawi (presidential and parliamentary elections).

Research Interests

Much of Tom’s work over the last few years has concentrated on information and communication technologies (ICT), initially with a focus on how mobile phones and the internet are used in micro and small enterprises in Tanzania. This has drawn him into also looking at the social use of these technologies in countries across Africa and, increasingly, their application in other areas such as health.

Another of Tom’s areas of research is bioenergy, and he works on PISCES, a 5 year DFID-funded research programme consortium on new knowledge for sustainable bioenergy in developing countries. At present his work for PISCES is on socio-economic baseline data collection and analysis in Tanzania, Kenya, India and Sri Lanka, with a view to informing policy mechanisms at various levels both domestically and internationally.

The thread that links these research areas is an interest in livelihoods; how people ‘get by’, often in difficult circumstances. This has tended to guide Tom’s fieldwork to a focus on the informal sector—the untaxed, unregistered ‘real economy’—that large numbers of people in developing countries participate in. His research has looked at the informal construction sector and perishable foodstuffs marketing in East Africa, along with the international African blackwood carving trade.

The third of Tom's research interests is the late Julius Kambarage Nyerere, who studied at the University from 1949-1952 and went on to become Tanzania's first President. Tom is currently researching the first thirty years of Nyerere's life, from his birth in 1922 until his return from Edinburgh to Tanganyika in 1952 (when Mwalimu began his efforts to attain independence from Britain). He is also interested in public and private visual images of Nyerere.

Tom also has a keen interest in qualitative data collection methods and methodological considerations relating to fieldwork in Africa in general.

Teaching

Tom is convenor of the CAS M.Sc. in African Studies semester two core course, Contemporary African Issues and Debates. In academic year 2010-11 he is also teaching East Central Africa (which this year will be open to postgraduate students only). He also runs the CAS seminar series.

Office hours (during semester): Tuesdays, 1100-1300

Supervision

Tom is currently supervising five Ph.D. students:

• Crystal Courtney: The Skeptical Tourist: Implications of ecotourism in Maasailand
• Gillian Davies: Ethnographic Analysis of Development Intermediaries’ Programmes to Establish and Grow Rural Markets for Small-Scale Renewable Energy Technologies in Sub-Saharan Africa
• Gianluca Iazzolino: (Barbed) Wireless: Mobile telephony in Dadaab refugee camp
• Sixta Kilambo: The Black Economic Empowerment Policy and Changes in Ownership in South Africa’s Mining Industry
• Angelina Mattijo-Bazugba: The Politics of Gender Quotas: What accounts for the relative success of the gender quotas in the first Southern Sudanese elections? 

A recently completed student is Thomas Fisher, who wrote a thesis entitled, 'Chagga Elites and the Politics of Ethnicity in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania'. Dr Fisher was quickly offered a lecturing post in Tanzania.

Tom is glad to discuss dissertation/thesis proposals with students or potential students who have an interest in any of the following topics:

- Information and communication technologies (ICT); mobile phones (particularly their use in society, economy or politics); the internet

- The informal sector; micro and small enterprises

- Bioenergy

- Elections, especially the electoral process

- Tanzanian politics and society

Recent Publications: peer-reviewed academic

Molony, T. 2012. Editorial: ICT and Human Mobility: Cases from developing countries and beyond. Information Technology for Development, 18 (2), pp.87-90

Molony, T. 2011. 'Bioenergy Policies in Africa: Mainstreaming gender amid an increasing focus on biofuels'. Biofuels, Bioproducts and Biorefining, 5 (3), pp.330-341  

Molony, T. and Smith, J. 2010. 'African Biofuels'. BioFuels Journal, Third quarter, pp.64 

Molony, T. and Smith, J. 2010. 'Biofuels, Food Security, and Africa'. African Affairs, 109 (436), pp.489-498

Molony, T. 2009. 'Carving a Niche: ICT, social capital and trust in the shift from personal to impersonal trading in Tanzania'. Information Technology for Development, 15 (4), pp.283-301

Molony, T. 2009. 'Trading Places in Tanzania: Mobility and marginalisation in a time of travel-saving technologies'. In de Bruijn, M., F. Nyamnjoh, I. Brinkman (Eds.) Mobile Phones: The New Talking Drums of Everyday Africa, YaoundÉ/Leiden: Langaa/Afrika Studiecentrum, pp.92-109

Molony, T. 2008. 'Running out of credit: The limitations of mobile telephony in a Tanzanian agricultural marketing system'. Journal of Modern African Studies, 46 (4), pp.637-658

Molony, T. 2008. 'The role of mobile phones in Tanzania's informal construction sector: The case of Dar es Salaam'. Urban Forum, 19 (2), pp.175-186

Molony, T. 2008. 'Non-Developmental Uses of Mobile Communication in Tanzania'. In Handbook of Mobile Communication Studies, Katz, J.E. (ed.). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp.339-352

Molony, T. 2007. 'I don't trust the phone; it always lies: Social capital and information and communication technologies in Tanzanian micro and small enterprises'. Information Technology and International Development, (MIT Press) 3 (4), pp.67-83

Molony, T. and Hammett, D. 2007. 'The Friendly Financier: Talking money with the silenced research assistant'. Human Organization, 66 (3), pp.292-300

Molony, T., Richey, L. and Ponte, S. 2007. ''Darwin's Nightmare': A critical assessment'. Review of African Political Economy, 113 (34), pp.598-608

Recent Publications: reports and miscellaneous

Molony, T. 2011. 'Cultural expression in Tanzania' in World and Its Peoples - Sub-Saharan Africa, Volume 6 Eastern Central Africa and the Indian Ocean. New York: Marshall Cavendish, pp.835-836

Molony, T. and Smith, J. 2010. 'Biofuels in Africa: Growing complexities' in Africa Energy Yearbook 2010. Surrey: EnergyNet, pp.61-64

Molony, T. and Mussaffer, N. (eds.) 2010. 'Bioenergy Advance Market Commitments (AMCs) in Sri Lanka'. PISCES Policy Brief no.5. Nairobi: PISCES

Molony, T. 2009. 'Nyerere: The formative years' in Julius Kambarage Nyerere: Life, Times, Legacy. London: FIRST

Molony, T. 2009. 'Tanzania Palm Oil' in Practical Action Consulting, ed. Small-scale bioenergy initiatives: Brief description and preliminary lessons on livelihood impacts from case studies in Asia, Latin America and Africa, pp. 76-80. Nairobi and Rome: PISCES and FAO

Molony, T. and Smith, J. 2009. 'Sustainable Biofuels Crops and Access in Developing Countries'. PISCES Working Brief no.2. Nairobi: PISCES

Molony, T. 2006. ICT in Developing Countries. POST Note briefing document for members of the House of Commons and House of Lords. Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology, Westminster