Dr Carla Lever is a cultural anthropologist interested in spectacle, place and embodied practice in a South African context.

Her interdisciplinary PhD examined the performative nature of national identities under former president Jacob Zuma, focussing particularly on embodied socio-political phenomena such as sport, public art interventions and political protest.

She is currently lecturing on South African protest and performativity, while undertaking research on the tactical use of spectacle in contemporary South African protest movements. She is the co-recipient of an American Society of Theatre Research grant to investigate statue-based protest in the US and South Africa.