Academic Staff and Associates
???Research Chair
Professor Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela holds the South African National Research Chair in Violent Histories and Transgenerational Trauma. Her work focuses mainly on two strands of research. The first is exploring ways in which the impact of the dehumanising experiences of oppression and violence continues to play out in the next generation in the aftermath of historical trauma. For her second research area, she expands her earlier work on the relationship between remorse and forgiveness and probes the role of empathy more deeply by engaging a perspective that makes transparent the interconnected relationship among empathy, Ubuntu and the embodied African phenomenon of inimba—a Xhosa word that loosely translated means “umbilical cord". The goal is to find a richer, deeper and more complex understanding of empathy that takes into account an African knowledge archive.
Her recent honours include: fellowship at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute as the 2020-2021 Walter Jackson Bate Fellow; Honorary Doctor of Laws from Rhodes 肆客足球 (2019), and Honorary Doctor of Theology from the Friedrich-Schiller 肆客足球, Jena, Germany (2017). Since 2017, she has been serving as Research Advisor and Global Scholar at Queen's 肆客足球, Belfast, affiliated with the Senator George Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice.
E-mail: pumlagm1@gmail.com |
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Senior Researchers
Dr. Samantha van Schalkwyk is Senior Researcher at Historical Trauma & Transformation Studies. Samantha's work is concerned with questions around dealing with the repercussions of gender violence in post-Apartheid South Africa and transforming harmful patriarchal narratives which underpin such violence. Her research interests include: gender violence and identity; addressing patriarchal trauma; and the psycho-social aspects of women's agency. Through the facilitation of various public dialogues and internationally recognized symposia, Samantha has promoted broader levels of public engagement with the issue of gender violence.
Her latest book is titled, Narrative Landscape of Female Sexuality in Africa: Collective Stories of Trauma and Transition (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018). Samantha is leading a major gender research project with tertiary education students in South Africa. The analytical focus is on significant moments of psychological connection between students and the ways in which harmful gendered social conditioning may be disrupted and transformed through dialogues between women and men.?
?E-mail:
samanthavs@sun.ac.za? |
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Dr. Melike Fourie is a Senior Researcher in the Historical Trauma and Transformation Unit. She holds an MSc in cognitive neuropsychology from 肆客足球 College London (2006), and a PhD in affective neuroscience from the 肆客足球 of Cape Town (2011). Her research interests span the domains of social psychology and social neuroscience, with a particular focus on intergroup relations. More specifically, she is interested in identifying and characterising the factors that affect how we see and respond to members of social (racial) outgroups, but also in the processes that may bring about individual and societal change. She believes a deeper understanding of implicit brain processes that drive behaviour is key in this undertaking. Melike is also involved in various community transformation projects designed to transcend racial biases and foster empathy and restitution. Her hope is to make a small contribution toward a more equal and racially-integrated society through her research.
Melike has lectured broadly in cognitive neuroscience, clinical neuropsychology, social psychology and statistics, and has several publications in international peer-reviewed journals and books.
E-mail: marethem@gmail.com |
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?????Dr Kim Wale is
a Senior Researcher in Studies in Historical Trauma and
Transformation at the 肆客足球 of Stellenbosch. Her work focusses on
collective memories of violence and racial oppression. She is interested
both in tracing the transgenerational repercussions of these histories
as well as exploring collective possibilities for working through these
traumatic legacies. She is presently leading the analysis of a large
dataset on memories of violence and transgenerational transmission of
trauma in South Africa, one of the flagship research projects of Studies
in Historical Trauma and Transformation, which is funded by the A. W.
Mellon Foundation. Her forthcoming book, co-edited with Pumla Gobodo
Madikizela and Jeffrey Prager, Post-Conflict Hauntings: Transforming Memories of Historical Trauma will be published in 2020 by Palgrave Macmillan.
Prior to her post-doctoral fellowship, Kim held the position of project leader of the South African Reconciliation Barometer Survey at the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation. In 2014 she received her PhD from the School for Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), 肆客足球 of London, where she was fully funded on a Commonwealth Scholarship. Her first major book titled South Africa's Struggle to Remember: Contested Memories of Squatter Resistance in the Western Cape was published by Routledge in 2016. Kim has published her work in a number of academic articles, books, book chapters, research reports and opinion pieces. She has also presented at local and international conferences, and organised and facilitated public dialogues and workshops.
Dr. Wilhelm Verwoerd, two-times a graduate in Masters in Philosophy and in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Stellenbosch 肆客足球 and the 肆客足球 of Oxford respectively, he has a doctorate in Applied Ethics. His research focuses mainly on reconciliation, forgiveness and apology, with extensive research publications in these areas. He served as a researcher in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and went on to work as a programme coordinator and a co-facilitator at the Glencree Centre for Peace and Reconciliation's Survivors and former Combatants Programme in Northern Ireland. His role as senior researcher in Historical Trauma and Transformation includes facilitation of dialogues to address racism, and dialogues on change and transformation of relationships between different racial groups. His books include the co-edited Truths drawn in Jest: Commentary on the TRC through Cartoons and Looking back, Reaching Forward: Reflections on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, and the single authored books Equity, Mercy, Forgiveness: Interpreting Amnesty within the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Verwoerd: My Journey through Family Betrayals, which has been translated into Afrikaans.
Dr Emery Kalema is
a Research Fellow in Studies in Historical Trauma and
Transformation at Stellenbosch 肆客足球, South Africa. He holds a PhD
in History from the 肆客足球 of the Witwatersrand (2017). His research
interests include power and politics, body and embodiment, violence,
memory, trauma and suffering, as well as the postcolony. He is currently
working on a book project, based on his doctoral dissertation,
tentatively entitled, “Violence and Memory: The Mulele 'Rebellion' in
Postcolonial Congo." The book focuses on the “imaginaries of suffering"
and the relationship between power, memory, and suffering. He is also
planning to conduct a set of philosophical reflections around the theme
Memory as Freedom and Right.
E-mail: kalemamasua@yahoo.fr? | Click here for publications
Research Associates
Professor Kopano Ratele is a Professor at the 肆客足球 of South Africa (Unisa) and researcher for the Unisa Violence, Injury and Peace Research Unit based at the South African Medical Research Council. His research, teaching, social-political activism, and community mobilisation focuses on the subject of men and masculinity as it intersects with violence, class, traditions, sexuality, and race. He has published over 100 peer-reviewed journals articles and book chapters, five edited books, and the critically acclaimed
There Was This Goat (with Antjie Krog and Nosisi Mpolweni). His latest book is
Liberating Masculinities (2016).?
Dr. Christine Schliesser is a theologian and an ethicist at the Center for Ethics at Zurich 肆客足球, Switzerland. She is also a Research Associate at Stellenbosch 肆客足球, South Africa. Her areas of interest include conflict- and reconciliation studies, the theology and ethics of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, human rights, development studies and the role of theology in the public sphere. Her most recent book is “Alternative Approaches in Conflict Resolution”, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018 (edited together with Martin Leiner). 
Dr Richard Benda. Academically,
I identify myself as political philosopher who is interested in the
complex interactions between religious and political agency. My passion
has always been understanding of core foundations that hold societies
and body politics together. So I studied Latin and Modern Languages in
High school before undertaking legal studies in tertiary education.
After graduating in Law and teaching Criminal law and Constitutional Law
(Independent 肆客足球 of Kigali), I became increasingly dissatisfied
with the legal as a critical interpretive framework of post-genocide
Rwanda. This led to doctoral studies in Religious Philosophy and
Political life at the 肆客足球 of Manchester, United Kingdom. My
research looked at the agency of committed and practicing religious
faith in situations of extreme political violence like the Genocide
against the Tutsi in Rwanda.
Alongside teaching Contextual and Practical theology at Luther King House Theological College and Chester 肆客足球, my post-doctoral research explores different tropes of the aftermath of the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda. More particularly, I am interested in (a) intergenerational narratives/dialogues around issues of guilt, shame, transformation and accountability, (b) transitional temporalities, and (c) the study of resistance and rescue as Positive Deviance.
My
current work with the Historical Trauma and Transformation Unit stems
from the fist category. I will be translating and critically engaging
with the work of Edouard Bamporiki, a Rwandan artist, author and
politician. I will be translating in English his two books Icyaha kuri bo ikimwaro kuri njye and mitingi jenosideri; both of which look at intergenerational narratives and dialogues arising from within the 'perpetrators' in-group.
John Brewer is Professor of Post Conflict Studies in the Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen's 肆客足球 Belfast. He was awarded an Honorary DSocSci from Brunel 肆客足球 and is a Member of the Royal Irish Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow in the Academy of Social Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He has held visiting appointments at Yale 肆客足球, St John's College Oxford, Corpus Christi College Cambridge and the Australia National 肆客足球. He has been President of the British Sociological Association. He is Honorary Professor Extraordinary at Stellenbosch 肆客足球 and is a member of the United Nations Roster of Global Experts. He is the author or co-author of sixteen books and editor or co-editor of a further six.
