History Department - Stellenbosch University

Our colleague Dr Este Kotze is spending a term at the Institute for Advanced Studies at Goethe University in Frankfurt, Germany, working on her research project 'Church and Charity: The Dutch Reformed Church and changing conceptions of poverty in South Africa'.

Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften Forschungskolleg Humanwissenschaften

Today was Doctoral Day, when our PhD students present the fruits of their research. Prizes for best presentation Imani Emmanuel Phiri on women brewing beer in Zambia, runner up Tapiwa Vincent Mutasa on the legislation surrounding s*x work in Zimbabwe, and most expert chair, Brian Maregedze.

Do voters in African democracies prioritise the economy over rights and freedoms? Our colleague Dr Sishuwa told Al Jazeera that while hunger is a major factor, it is not the bedrock of their concerns. In Zambia's election, the spectrum of voters' needs is much wider than food.

What's at stake in Zambia's elections? | Inside Story Zambia's President Hakainde Hichilema boasts about the economic rec...

Our own Dr Sishuwa Sishuwa presented the departmental seminar today on the constitutional crisis that was narrowly averted following the death of Zambian President Michael Sata. While the constitution provided for the succession of the then Vice President, Guy Scott, cabinet minister Edgar Lungu - who had been appointed acting president while Sata was travelling for medical treatment - made a bid for power. The title of the talk: ‘Why then were we fighting for self-rule… if we can let a white man rule us?’ echoes the words of a Lungu supporter arguing that Scott's race and foreign parentage made him ineligible. The attorney general ruled that Lungu's bid for power was illegal and possibly treasonous, and Scott became acting president until the following election. Sishuwa's paper, coauthored with Duncan Money, argues that while institutions matter when it comes to securing peaceful alternation of power, elite-level individual leadership is decisive particularly in cases of contested succession.

Congratulations to Amy Rommelspacher, one of our former PhD students, on the publication of her latest article. By a happy coincidence, together with Jabulani Shaba's article this makes two articles by Stellenbosch PhDs both in the same issue of JSAS, both dealing in different ways with women and work.

‘Too delicate to work’? Breadwinners, Women and Work in Cape Town before the Second World War The male-breadwinner model is at the centre of feminist research as well as research into women and work in the past. While there is much scholarly debate about the mechanisms of the model, the rea...

Congratulations to our former PhD student Jabulani Shaba on this new publication in the Journal of Southern African Studies - based on a chapter from Jabulani's PhD thesis supervised by Prof. Sandra Swart.

Toxified Bodies: Women and Everyday Encounters of Mercury in Artisanal Gold Mining in Mazowe, Zimbabwe, c.2000 to the Present Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the Mazowe district of Zimbabwe, this article analyses how women navigate multi-layered toxic landscapes within artisanal gold mining. The article sho...

Beware, this is what happens when you use AI tools for your assignments.

Starting the new semester, Prof. Dan Branch, visiting from Warwick University, spoke on 'Tom Mboya and the Politics of Friendship in Kenya's Shadow Archives', basing his talk on issues surrounding the multi-archival research that informed his recent book.

Maties past and present at plus a tree of a colour you only see in Zimbabwe.

The whole Maties History gang at the University of Zimbabwe in Harare