Job title:
Doctoral Candidate
Bio/CV:
Alexandra Gessesse is a cultural worker, daughter of the diaspora, and PhD Candidate in the Department of African Diaspora Studies at UC Berkeley. Alexandra’s dissertation examines how Ethiopian and Eritrean immigrants navigate historically Black neighborhoods in the U.S., forging new forms of belonging through the lenses of place, politics, and popular culture. As a visual storyteller, Alexandra uses photography and video to capture the everyday moments where these complex negotiations of identity unfold—revealing how Blackness is performed, contested, and reimagined through their daily practices of placemaking, and how those practices reveal and depict memories of home and belonging. More broadly, her research interests include the African Diaspora and Africa, Colonialism, community and neighborhood organizations, Culture (music, visual art, film), Political Economy, and Transnationalism. Alexandra received a Bachelor of Arts in Black Studies in Social Policy and Politics with honors, and a minor in History and Writing, from UC Santa Barbara.
Alexandra's work has been featured in publications from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, Decolonize Design, and Zocalo Public Square. She is a regular contributor to the Lebawi Sonar, a local journal for Lebawi International Academy located in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
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