Deborah Fahy Bryceson

Born in the United States, Bryceson moved to Tanzania in 1971, where she obtained a BA and MA in Geography at the University of Dar es Salaam.[2] She obtained a DPhil (Sociology) at the University of Oxford on African food insecurity.

Bryceson was a Senior Research Fellow at the Afrika-studiecentrum in Leiden between 1992 and 2005, which maintains a small archive of documents obtained during her research for her first publication, Food Insecurity and the Social Division of Labour in Tanzania.[3]

Following her departure from the Africa-studiecentrum in Leiden, Bryceson took up the roles of Senior Lecturer and Reader at the Universities of Birmingham (2003–2004), Glasgow (2009–2013), respectively.[4] Bryceson also consulted with various international agencies, including the ILO, World Bank, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the then UK Department for International Development (now the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office).[2]

Deborah Bryceson's main topics of study focus on the transformation of social and economic life in Sub-Saharan Africa. Bryceson's contributions to the field are found across the range of her publications – with her most notable being the definition of the concepts of 'de-agrarianization', 'transnational families' and 'mineralized urbanization'.

• Bryceson, Deborah Food Insecurity and the Social Division of Labour in Tanzania, 1919–1985. 1990. London: Macmillan
• Bryceson, Deborah Liberalizing Tanzania's Food Trade: Public & Private Faces of Urban Marketing Policy 1939–1988. 1993. London: James Currey Publishers
• Bryceson, Deborah et al. Women Wielding the Hoe: Lessons from Rural Africa for Feminist Theory and Development Practice. (ed.) 1995. Oxford: Berg Publishers
• Bryceson, Deborah & Jamal, Vali Farewell to Farms: De-agraianization and Employment in Africa (ed.) 1997. Aldershot: Ashgate
• Bryceson, Deborah, Kay, Cristobal & Mooij, Jos Disappearing Peasantries? Rural Labour in Africa, Asia and Latin America (ed.) 2000. London: Intermediate Technology Publications
• Bryceson, Deborah Alcohol in Africa: Mixing Business, Pleasure and Politics (ed.) 2002. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann
• Bryceson, Deborah & Banks, Leslie Livelihood, Linkages and Policy Paradoxes (ed.) 2001. Special Issue of the Journal of Contemporary African Studies 19(1)
• Bryceson, Deborah & Vuorela, Ulla The Transnational Family: New European Frontiers and Global Networks (ed.) 2002. Oxford: Berg Press
• Bryceson, Deborah & Potts, Deborah African Urban Economies: Viability, Vitality or Vitiation? (ed.) 2006. London: Palgrave Macmillan
• Bryceson, Deborah, Okely, Judith & Webber, Jonathan Identity and Networks: Fashioning Gender and Ethnicity across Cultures (ed.) 2007. Oxford: Berghahn
• Bryceson, Deborah, Havnevik, Kjell, Birgegård, Lars-Erik, Matondi, Prosper, Beyene, Atakilte African Agriculture and The World Bank: Development or Impoverishment? (ed.) 2007. Uppsala: Nordic Africa Institute ISBN 978-9171066084
• Bryceson, Deborah, Grieco, Margaret, Ndulo, Muna, Porter, Gina & McCray, Talia Africa, Transport and the Millenium Development Goals (ed.) 2009. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing ISBN 978-1-4438-1300-6
• Bryceson, Deborah et al. How Africa Works: Occupational Change, Identity and Morality (ed.) 2010. London: Practical Action Publishers ISBN 978-1-85339-691-5
• Bryceson, Deborah & MacKinnon, Danny Mining & Urbanisation in Africa: Population, Settlement and Welfare Trajectories (ed.) 2012. Abingdon, UK: Routledge ISBN 9781138383289
• Bryceson, Deborah, Fisher, Eleanor, Jonsson, Jesper Bosse, Mwaipopo, Rosemarie Mining & Social Transformation in Africa: Mineralising and Democratising Trends in Artisanal Production (ed.) 2014. Abingdon, UK: Routledge ISBN 978-0-415-83370-7
• Bryceson, Deborah Transnational Families in Global Migration: Navigating Economic Development and Life Cycles across Blurred and Brittle Borders (ed.) 2019. Special Issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45(16) doi:10.1080/1369183X.2018.1547017
• ‘Domestic Work’, in Bellucci, S. and A. Eckert (eds). 2019. General Labour History of Africa: Workers, Employers and Governments 20th-21st Centuries. Geneva, International Labour Office, 301–333. doi:10.2307/j.ctvd58sjm.18.
• 'Handbook of Transnational Families around the World'. (edited by Javiera Cienfuegos, Rosa Brandhorst and Deborah Fahy Bryceson) 2023. London: Springer/Taylor Francis. ISBN 978-3-031-15278-8.