Staff And Fellows
Noëleen Murray
Noëleen Murray is the Director of the Wits City Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand. She holds the Andrew W. Mellon Chair in Critical Architecture and Urbanism. Her architectural degrees (BAS, B.Arch and M.Arch) and her PhD (African Studies) are from the University of Cape Town. Her key academic books include Desire Lines – Space, Memory and Identity in the Postapartheid City (2007); and Becoming UWC, Reflections, pathways and the unmaking of apartheid’s legacy (2012). Her most recent book, Hostels, Homes Museum, memorializing migrant labour pasts in Lwandle South Africa, co-authored with Leslie Witz, appeared in 2014 and was awarded the Michael M. Ames Award for Innovative Museum Anthropology by the Council for Museum Anthropology of the American Association of Anthropologists.
Mpho Matsipa
Mpho Matsipa is a Lecturer in the School of Architecture and Planning at the University of the Witwatersrand. From 2016-2018 she was appointed via the Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment through the Diversifying the Academy fund as a Researcher located in the Wits City Institute . During this time she published one peer reviewed article in the special edition of the Journal Thesis Eleven titled Performative Jozi (guest edited by Peter Vale and Noëleen Murray) and curated the African Mobilities exhibition at the Architecture Museum in Munich. She was also an adjunct assistant professor and associate research scholar at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. She has a B.Arch from the University of Cape Town. Mpho was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship and later, a Carnegie Grant. Her PhD (Architecture) is from the University of California, Berkeley.
Christine Bischoff
Christine Bischoff is the Deputy Director of the Wits City Institute at the University of the Witwatersrand. Appointed as a Researcher she is completing her PhD entitled The nexus between the rise of nationalism in COSATU, the public sector and the middle class in the post-apartheid ANC state in South Africa at the University of Pretoria. She holds a Master of Arts in Industrial Sociology from the University of the Witwatersrand and has published widely in journals such as the International Labour Review and Work and Occupations, contributing various chapters to books on COSATU, including COSATU in crisis: the fragmentation of an African trade union federation (2015) and Labour Beyond COSATU: Mapping the rupture in South Africa’s labour landscape (2017).
Jill Weintroub
Jill Weintroub is a Life in the City Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wits City Institute. Her interest in cities and spaces draws on earlier disciplinary training as an historian with an interest in cross-disciplinary scholarship touching on contested areas such as public history and heritage, knowledge production, biography, histories of thought and fieldwork, and debates related to archive-making and the place of colonial archives in the postcolonial present. Her book on the life and scholarship of the linguist and rock art scholar Dorothea Bleek, A Life of Scholarship, was published in 2016. Weintroub is an Honorary Research Fellow at the Rock Art Research Institute, where she continues to explore the history of rock art research and its emergence as a formal and discrete discipline in the South African academy.
Farah-Naaz Moosa
Farah-Naaz Moosa is studying towards a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Psychology. She joined the Wits City Institute as the Finance and Project Administrator in December 2016. She manages all the projects, finances and administration within the Institute.
Jonathan Cane
Jonathan Cane is the Wits City Institute Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, University of the Witwatersrand. He received his Bachelor of Arts (Hons) from the Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town and his PhD in Art History from the University of the Witwatersrand. His thesis, “Civilising Grass: The Art of the Lawn on the South African Highveld”, is a queer postcolonial study of the ‘domesticated’ landscape. He is currently building an archive of the Rand Mines Properties plan for Ormonde in the late 1960s for the City Institute’s NRF-funded project The New “South”: The Rand Mine Properties Project. His project 60+: Queer, Old Joburg is an exploration of LGBTI spatial urban histories before the end of apartheid. His research interests are landscape art, architectural modernism, postcolonialism and urban queer studies.
Doctoral Fellows
Brittany Birberick
Brittany Birberick was a Wits City Institute Visiting Fulbright-Hays Fellow & PhD candidate in the Anthropology Department at the University of California, Berkeley. She was conducting dissertation research in Johannesburg on the relationship between industry, images and development in Jeppestown. More broadly, she writes and thinks about materiality, temporality, African visual art, and mapping as they relate to space and shifting understandings of work and labor. The title of her thesis is ‘The Sight of the factory: eluding success and failure in Jeppestown, South Africa’.
Dumisa Kenneth Dlamini
Dumisa Dlamini is a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Town and Regional Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of this thesis is ‘Urban Development and Management of Tshwane Inner-City 1855-2015’. He is supervised by Professor Mfaniseni Sihlongonyane (School of Architecture and Planning).
Joshua Kumbani
Joshua Kumbani is a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-Centring AfroAsia Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Archaeology, School of Geography Archaeology and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his thesis is ‘Music, a hidden phenomenon in the archaeological record of the southern Cape’. He is supervised by Professor Sarah Wurz (Department of Archaeology).
Nonofho Ndobochani
Nonofho Mathibidi Ndobochani is a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-Centring AfroAsia Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Archaeology, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her thesis is ‘Understanding the dynamics of herding and cattle posts in the pre-colonial Tswana of the last 500 years’. She is supervised by Professor Karim Sadr (Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies).
Memory Reid
Memory Reid is a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-Centring AfroAsia Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Geography, School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies, Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of their thesis is ‘Perspectives on the Impacts of Climate Change and Energy Security on Urban Livelihoods of Poor Households in Harare, Zimbabwe’. She is supervised by Professor Danny Simatele (Department of Geography).
Laura Burocco
Laura Burocco was a Wits City Institute Visiting Doctoral Fellow, supervised by Professor Noëleen Murray & PhD candidate at the Escola de Comunicação da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. The title of her thesis is ‘Creative Control explored through two case studies in the Global South: Porto Maravilha (Rio de Janeiro) Maboneng Precinct (Johannesburg)’.
Michèle Dykes
Michèle Dykes is a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her thesis is ‘The Spirit of the Cradle: Embodying Sterkfontein Caves through a Spatial Augmented Reality Experience’. She is supervised by Professor Daniel Irurah (School Of Architecture and Planning), Dr Dominic Stratford (School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies) and Professor Oliver Bimber (Johannes Kepler University, Austria).
Njogu Morgan
Njogu Morgan was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in Town and Regional Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his thesis is ‘An inquiry into changes in everyday bicycling cultures; The case of Johannesburg in conversation with Amsterdam, Beijing and Chicago’. He was supervised by Professor Philip Harrison (Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning). Morgan graduated in December 2017.
Mduduzi Nhlozi
Mduduzi Nhlozi is a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Town and Regional Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Witwatersrand. The title of his thesis is ‘Food security in rural areas of a northern region of KwaZulu Natal: The Case of uMkhanyakude District Municipality’. He is supervised by Professor Mfaniseni Sihlongonyane (School of Architecture and Planning).
Dineo Skosana
Dineo Skosana is a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-Centring AfroAsia, PhD candidate in the Department of Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her thesis is ‘Colliery Mining and Grave Relocations: an Intersection of South Africa’s Mineral and Heritage law’. She is supervised by Professor Julian Brown (Political Studies), and Professor Amanda Esterhuysen (School Of Geography, Archaeology And Environmental Studies).
Njabulo Chipangura
Njabulo Chipangura is a Wits City Institute Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation.The title of his thesis is ‘Artisanal and Small Mining of Gold in the Eastern Highlands of Zimbabwe: Archeaological, Ethnographic and Historical Characteristics’. He is supervised by Professor Robert Thornton (Anthropology Department) and Professor Karim Sadr (School of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies).
BJ Engelbrecht
Barend Engelbretch is a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Fine Arts, Wits School of Arts, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his thesis is ‘Sound Art, Space & Johannesburg’. He is supervised by Professor Gerrit Olivier (Wits School of Arts).
Witness Mudzamatira
Witness Mudzamatira is a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-Centring AfroAsia Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Geography, Archaeology and Environmental Studies. School of Archaeology, Faculty of Science, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his thesis is ‘Spatial Information Technology and Heritage Management in the Southern Gauteng Province, South Africa’. Mudzamatira is supervised by Professor Karim Sadr (School Of Geography, Archaeology And Environmental Studies).
Thabang Nkuna
Thabang Nkuna is a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-Centring AfroAsia Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of African Literature. School of Media, Language and Literature Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his thesis is ‘A Broken Claim to Connection’: Sketching the claims of Islamic and Black African Traditions’. Nkuna is supervised by Professor Bheki Peterson (African Literature).
Lisa Vetten
Lisa Vetten is a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her thesis is ‘Governing Rape: The Biopolitics of Sexual Violence in South Africa’. She is supervised by Professor Garth Stevens (Department of Psychology).
Natasha Christopher
Natasha Christopher is a Wits City Institute Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Division of Visual Arts, Wits School of Arts (WSOA), Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her thesis is ‘Welkom to Johannesburg’. Christopher is co-supervised by Professor David Andrew (Wits School of Arts) and Professor Noëleen Murray (Wits City Institute).
Kira Kemper
Kira Kemper was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Fine Arts, Wits School of Arts, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand.
Duduzile Ndlovu
Duduzile Ndlovu was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate at the African Centre for Migration and Society, Faculty of the Humanities, University of Witwatersrand. The title of her thesis is ‘Let me tell my own story: A qualitative exploration of how and why victims remember Gukurahundi in Johannesburg today’. Ndlovu was supervised by Professor Ingrid Palmary (African Centre for Migration & Society). Ndlovu graduated in December 2017.
Serge Ntamack
Serge Ntamack was a Wits City Institute Mellon Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Town and Regional Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Witwatersrand. The title of his thesis is ‘Reification of space within knowledge production: The case of the circulating idea of resilience internationally and in the context of South African cities’. Ntamack was supervised by Professor Philip Harrison (Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning). Ntamack graduated in December 2017.
Morgen Zivhave
Morgen Zivhave is a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Doctoral Fellow & PhD candidate in the Department of Town and Regional Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment, University of Witwatersrand. The title of his thesis is ‘Networks of innovation in the urban agriculture value chain: Municipal practices in the formalisation of urban agriculture as an urban land-use in the city of Johannesburg’. He is co-supervised by Professor Daniel Irurah (School Of Architecture and Planning) and Dr Kristen Kornienko (School Of Architecture and Planning).
Master Fellows
Nocebo Bucibo
Nocebo Bucibo is a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. She is registered for a Master of Arts in Fine Arts, Wits School of Arts, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her dissertation is ‘A just image: exploring the political and social context of the hostels via practice in the medium of photography.’ She is supervised by Jessica Webster (Wits School of Arts).
Catherine Chinyandura
Catherine Chinyandura was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. She was registered in the Development Studies programme in the Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of Witwatersrand. The title of her research report is ‘Gender, the environment and renewable energy at the household level’. Chiyandura was supervised by Dr Srila Roy (Department of Sociology). Chiyandura graduated in December 2016.
Nolizwe Madinga
Nolizwe Madinga was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. She was registered for a Master of Arts by Coursework and Research in the Department of Anthropology, School of Social Science, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her dissertation is ‘Loving the land that feeds you: An ethnographic investigation of volunteers in a community food garden’. She was supervised by Dr Sharad Chari (Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research). Madinga graduated in 2017.
Refiloe Namise
Refiloe Namise is a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. She is registered in the School of Arts, Faculty of Humanities for a Master of Arts in Fine Arts (two year program). The title of her dissertation is ‘Segomotso sa Gomora: A Remembering of moments in Alexandra through sites of narratives, collections and performance’. Namise is co-supervised by Dorothee Kreutzfeldt (Wits School of Arts) and Donna Kukama (Wits School of Arts).
Kershan Pancham
Kershan Pancham was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. He was registered for a Master of Arts in Diversity Studies (coursework and research report) with the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his dissertation is ‘How to treat, curate, and work with an archive for epistemologically-ethical representation of its persons, materials, data, information and knowledge potential?’. He was supervised by Professor Noëleen Murray (Wits City Institute). Pancham graduated in December 2017 from the University of Cape Town.
Bradley Cebekhulu
Bradley Cebekhulu is a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-Centring AfroAsia Masters Fellow. He is registered for a Master of Arts by Dissertation in the Department of Film and Television, Wits School of Arts, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his dissertation is ‘Re-Centring Afrocentricity.’ He is supervised by Nduka Mntambo (Wits Film and Television).
Malebo Gololo
Malebo Gololo is a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. She is registered in the department of International Relations, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of Witwatersrand. The title of her dissertation is ‘The informal sector as a catalyst for poverty reduction in fostering human development.’ She is supervised by Dr Jacqueline De Matos Ala (Department of International Relations).
Tanduxolo Makomo
Tanduxolo Makomo was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. He was registered in the department of Town and Regional Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his dissertation was, ‘The conversion and reuse of military bases in urban spaces for commercial purposes’. Makomo was supervised by Professor Noëleen Murray (Wits City Institute).
Makale Ngwenya
Makale Ngwenya was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. She was registered for a Masters of the Built Environment (Housing), School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment. The title of her dissertation is ‘Johannesburg Inner City’s Appropriated Buildings: Residents’ responses to vulnerability and precarious living conditions’. She was supervised by Dr Sarah Charlton (School of Architecture and Planning). Ngwenya graduated in December 2017.
Lindelwa Pepu
Lindelwa Pepu was a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-centring AfroAsia Masters Fellow. She was registered for a Masters of Arts by Research and Coursework, Department of Heritage, Wits School of Art, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her dissertation is ‘The Uhadi and Malunga bow: Curatorial Implications’. She was supervised by Professor Brett Pyper (Wits School of Arts). Pepu graduated in 2017.
Abdulwaagied Charles
Abdulwaagied Charles was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. He was registered for a Master of Arts by Dissertation, Department of History, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his dissertation is ‘Encountering the Soft City: Writing about Lavender Hill in the post-apartheid and the Limits of Historiographical Representation.’ He was supervised by Professor Noëleen Murray (Wits City Institute).
Kelebogile Khunou
Kelebogile Khunou was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. She was registered for a Master of Arts in Political Studies, Department of Political Studies, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her dissertation is “The social networks of domestic workers and the potential for these spaces to form and shape their political subjectivities.’ She was supervised by Dr Julian Brown (Political Studies). Khunou graduated in 2016.
Sizwe Mseleni
Sizwe Mseleni was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. She was registered for Master of Science in Development Planning, School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her dissertation is ‘The perceived effects of urban renewal initiatives, such as NDPG-funded capital projects, as reported by Mdantsane’s businesses on their operations’. She was supervised by Amanda Williamson (School of Architecture and Planning). Mseleni graduated in 2017.
Tsakane Nkombyane
Tsakane Nkombyane was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. She was registered for Master of Arts by Coursework and Research in the Department of Anthropology, School of Social Science, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her dissertation is ‘Trust and mistrust in the relations between Zimbabwean security guards and South African residents of a Phepha gated complex in Johannesburg.’ She was supervised by Dr Hilton White (Department of Anthropology). Nkombyane graduated in 2017.
Cheune Raphunga
Chuene Johannes Raphunga is a Mellon Re-Centering AfroAsia Masters fellow. He is registered for Master of Arts by Coursework and Research Report, Department of Anthropology, School of the Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his thesis is ‘How migration creates new forms of identities through performances’. He is supervised by Dr Caroline Taylor (Department of Anthropology).
Michael Cheesman
Michael Cheesman a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. He is registered for a Master of Arts in Fine Arts by Practice and Research in the Fine Arts Division of the Wits School of Art, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his research report is ‘I remember granny said: construction of a white family archive in 2017.’ He is supervised by Dr Jonathan Cane (Wits City Institute).
Tarryn Lee
Tarryn Lee was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. Lee was registered with Drama For Life Department, Wits School of Arts, Faculty of Humanities for a Masters of Art in Dramatic Art. The title of her dissertation is ‘Beyond the ‘linoleum colon’: Performance as Research into the constructed narrative of the public hospital space’. Lee was supervised by Professor Hazel Barnes (Wits School of Arts). Lee graduated in December 2017.
James Musonda
James Musonda was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. He was registered in the Global Labour University programme, Department of Sociology, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of Witwatersrand. He was supervised by Professor Devan Pillay (Department of Sociology). The title of his research report is ‘Understanding of environmental costs of mining on Mopani mine workers in their communities: environmental degradation, water, air, and land pollution in Kankoyo Township in Mufulira-Zambia caused by externalised costs of mining’. Musonda graduated in December 2017.
Ndudzo Nyanda
Ndudzo Nyanda was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. He was registered for a Master of Science, Development Planning, in the School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his dissertation is ‘A Critical look at the City of Johannesburg’s Corridors of Freedom.’ He was co-supervised by Professor Aly Karam and Professor Claire Benit-Gbaffou (School of Architecture & Planning). Nyanda graduated in 2017.
Rejoice Takuva
Rejoice Takuva was a Wits City Institute Mellon Architecture, Urbanism and Humanities Masters Fellow. She was registered for a Master of Built Environment (Housing) in the School of Architecture and Planning, Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her thesis is ‘Obstacles in the trajectory of parallel development: a case of Victoria Ranch Township, Masvingo’. She was supervised by Professor Marie Huchzermeyer (School of Architecture and Planning). Takuva graduated in December 2017.
Honours Fellows
Patricia Chipangura
Patricia Chipangura is a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-Centring AfroAsia Honours Fellow. She is registered for a Honours degree in the Wits School of Art, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand.
Leyya Hoosen
Leyya Hoosen was a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-Centring AfroAsia Honours Fellow. She was registered in the Department of Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her research is ‘The university as a site of displacement: considerations of the politics of knowledge production in producing exilic consciousness’s among marginalized scholars.’ Hoosen graduated in December 2017.
Mapule Mohulatsi
Mapule Mohulatsi was a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-Centring AfroAsia Honours Fellow. She was registered in the Honours programme, Department of African Literature, School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of her research is ‘Radio Islam’s Soweto Youth Listeners: Media, Religion, and Audience’. Mohulatsi graduated in December 2017.
Adam Worster
Adam Worster was a Wits City Institute Mellon Re-Centring AfroAsia Honours Fellow. He was registered in the History Department, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand. The title of his research is ‘Life on the edge of the Indian Ocean and the factors that shaped slave identities at the Cape Colony’. Worster graduated in July 2017.
Honorary Research Fellows
Britt Baillie
Britt Baillie is a researcher and founding member of the Centre for Urban Conflict Research, University of Cambridge and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. Previously, she was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow on the University of Pretoria’s Capital Cities Institutional Research Theme; an Affiliated Lecturer at the Division of Archaeology, University of Cambridge; Director of Studies for Archaeology and Anthropology at Peterhouse; a Postdoctoral Research Associate on the Conflict in Cities and the Contested State ESRC funded research project; an AHRC-funded Early Career Researcher on the Cambridge Community Heritage Project; a Research Fellow at CLUE VU University of Amsterdam’s Terrorscapes project; and a coordinator of the Cambridge Heritage Research Group.She has particpated and hosted seminars and workshops around urban heritage in collaboration with the Wits City Institute.
Jade Gibson
Jade Gibson is an interdisciplinary and multicultural academic, writer, creative scholar and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. Gibson is a researcher on the Re-Centring Afro-Asia project to which the Wits City Institute is a collaborative partner. She is interested in transdisciplinary innovative team-based projects. Her interdisciplinarity is in anthropology, visual art and medical science. Gibson’s academic background is in community, arts and international work, and she works in South Africa and in the UK. Dr Gibson specializes in heritage and culture, anthropology, museology, material culture, cities research, arts and social festivals, creative praxis, visual art, social change and identity.
Melissa Myambo
Melissa Tandiwe Myambo is a Research Associate at the Centre for Indian Studies in Africa, University of the Witwatersrand, and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. After earning her PhD in Comparative Literature from New York University in 2008, she was a Vice-Chancellor’s Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Cape Town where she taught in the Sociology Department. From 2013 to 2015 she was a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow and Visiting Assistant Professor in the International Institute at University of California, Los Angeles. She was a JIAS (Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Research) Writing Fellow in 2017 during which time she collaborated with the Wits City Institute to host a one day intensive seminar on Spatial Transformation in Johannesburg which is under review for publication, and a Fulbright-Nehru Scholar in 2016. Her research interests span political economy, postcolonial literature, urban spaces and sociology. Her latest project explores ‘highly-skilled’ migration from ‘developed’ countries such as the US to the ‘developing’ economies of China, India and South Africa, a process she terms ‘frontier migration’. She has presented and published widely in both academic and online forums.
Loyiso Tunce
Loyiso Tunce was the recipient of a Global Suburbanisms student scholarship in 2013 and 2014 and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. This is a key and ongoing project in the WCI and is funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC-CRSNG) via the City Institute at York University (CITY). Prior to this, he was part of the prestigious Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship program in 2011.
Robin Bloch
Robin Bloch is the Technical Director: Urban Planning at ICF, London and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. He is an urban planner, with principal areas of expertise in urban and metropolitan spatial and land use planning, urban and regional economic development, and urban environmental management, sustainability and resilience. He is a co-investigator on the Global Suburbanisms: Governance, Land and Infrastructure project, funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council, Government of Canada. The project researches the dynamics of urban spatial expansion on the global scale. Bloch, together with a Emeritus Professor Alan Mabin, a colleague at the University of the Witwatersrand, is responsible for studies on land, housing and urban planning, and case studies of peripheral development in sub-Saharan Africa. Bloch co-convened the Africa’s New Suburbanisms workshop at the Wits City Institute.
Svea Josephy
Svea Josephy is Associate Professor in Fine Art (Photography), Michaelis School of Fine Art, University of Cape Town. Josephy has held a number of exhibitions of her creative work, nationally and internationally, and curated a number of group exhibitions. Her research interests include Southern African photography, documentary photography, contemporary South African lens-based practice and colonial photography. Her writing on these areas has been published in various books, journals and catalogues. Her research is concerned with notions of postapartheid photography, particularly as it connects to the politics of space, land and its representation in relation to identity. Josephy contuniues to collaborate with Noëleen Murray and the Wits City Institute hosted her solo exhibtion and workshop at the Wits Art Museum titled Satellite Cities.
Mark Olalde
Mark Olalde is an investigative journalist and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. Olalde has completed his Jonannesburg based work on mine closures in South Africa and collaborated with the Wits City Institute on a workshop and exhibtion of his project titled, Legacy, a photo essay on the post-production of the life of South Africa’s abandoned mines.
Shahid Vawda
Shahid Vawda is a member of the Research team for the Re-Centring AfroAsia: Musical and Human Migrations: Pre-Colonial Period 700-1500AD project (funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation) as well as the lead PI on the Southern Indian Workshop project (Funded by the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences) and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. Vawda currently holds the Archie Mafeje Chair in Critical Humanities and the directorship of the School of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics (University of Cape Town).
Ângela Ferreira
Ângela Ferreira is Assistant Professor in Sculpture at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Lisbon University, and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. She was born in Mozambique, studied in South Africa, and teaches in Portugal, and thus has strong connections with both Europe and Africa. Her work investigates the complex relationship between the two continents, and the continuing impact of colonialism and post-colonialism in the present. She especially looks at the translation of modernism in the African-colonial context. Ferreira’s exhibition South Facing, curated by Amy Watson with support from the Wits City Institute, opened at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2017. On show were recent and previously unseen works, as well as work commissioned by the Johannesburg Art Gallery, drawing on Ferreira’s mode of critical architectural practice in her response to the gallery’s controversial 1989 extension by Meyer Pienaar.
Roger Keil
Roger Keil is York Research Chair in Global Suburban Studies in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. A former director of York University’s City Institute, he researches global suburbanization, urban political ecology, cities and infectious disease, and regional governance. As Principal Investigator of a Major Collaborative Research Initiative on “Global Suburbanisms: Governance, Land and Infrastructure in the 21st Century” (2010-2018) he works with 50 researchers and 20 partner organizations worldwide. Keil’s Global Suburbanisms project brought Africa’s New Suburbanisms workshop to the Wits City Institute.
Alexander Opper
Alexander Opper is a Wits City Institute Fellow & PhD candidate in the Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies (BIGSAS), University of Bayreuth, Germany. The title of his thesis is ‘Undoing the undoings of the Johannesburg Art Gallery: For the museum yet to become’. Opper is supervised by Dr Ulf Vierke (Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies). He is mentored by Professor Noeleen Murray (Wits City Institute) and Professor Dr Ivo Ritzer (Bayreuth International Graduate School of African Studies).
Yan Yang
Yan Yang is a Research Consultant, BRICS Cities Project , South African Cities Network and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. Yang is collaborating on a joint project investigating the Modderfontein site in greater Johannesburg with Noëleen Murray, Phil Harrison and Richard Ballard, which is a project between the Wits City Institute, the Gauteng City-Region Observatory (GCRO) and the South African Research Chair in Spatial Analysis and City Planning (SA&CP). Yang is also the Wits City Institute respresenative for the China / South Africa Centre currently under developemnt at Wits Univeristy.
John Filitz
John Filitz is an analytical and diligent political economy researcher/analyst and research project manager with international experience in Southern Africa and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. His areas of interest includes African development, industrialization, poverty and inequality, mining and extractive economic activity, socio-economic impact assessment, state infrastructure development/ports ,rail, utility management, energy/electricity generation, distribution, transmission.
Ute Lehrer
Ute Lehrer is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Environmental Studies, York University, Toronto. Previously, she held academic positions at Brock University, SUNY Buffalo and ETH Zurich, Switzerland. Lehrer is the Principal Investigator in a SSHRC-funded research project on Suburban identities in the global city between competition and cooperation: Toronto and Frankfurt, a research project funded by the Canadian Government. She also is a co-applicant in the Major Collaborative Research Initiative on Global Suburbanisms: Governance, Land and Infrastructure and is the team lead for New (Sub)Urban Forms/FlexSpace, housed at the City Institute, York University. Lehrer has been studying the condominium boom in Toronto since the early 2000s and was the recipient of a government funded research project. Lehrer convened the graduate tour as part of the Global Suburbanisms project at Africa’s New Suburbanisms workshop at the Wits City Institute
Steven Sack
Steven Sack is the former Director of the Origins Centre at the University of the Witwatersrand, and a Wits City Institute Honorary Research Fellow. He is Lead Investigator in the Art, Architecture, Museums and Social Practice project funded by a grant from the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at Wits that is researching forms of inequality and their visual representations, as well as interrogating museological and studio practices in southern Africa. In addition, Sack is consulting with the Government of Lesotho on developing a National Museum for the country. During his 40-year career in the heritage, museums, arts and culture public sector and economy in Johannesburg, he has worked as a teacher, a lecturer, an artist, a civil servant and a museum director. His research interests lie in the arts and increasingly in architecture and archaeology.