Alexander de Voogt

Who is Alexander de Voogt?

Alexander Johan de Voogt or simply Alex de Voogt is a Dutch researcher working as an assistant curator of African Ethnology at the American Museum of Natural History and best known for his work on the logics of traditional mancala games. He is also editor of Board Game Studies, the main scientific journal on board games.

De Voogt began studying mancalas in the 1990s, while he was in Zanzibar for a field study on the Swahili language. At the time, he began analyzing the rules and logical mechanics of the Bao mancala game by interviewing acknowledged Zanzibari "Bao masters". In 1995 he published his PhD thesis Limits of the Mind: Towards a Characterization of Bao Mastership where he analyzed the intellectual abilities required to master the Bao game.

The work on Bao set the basis for all subsequent research activities by De Voogt. Among the many mancalas De Voogt has been collecting information on and studying there are Katro, Owela, Warri, Hawalis, Ohvalhu, Mangaley and Olinda Keliya.