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2018
A Gene Revolution for Africa? Genetically Modified Crops and the Future of African Agriculture
Africa has emerged as the ‘final frontier’ in the global debate over the potential for Genetically Modified (GM) crops to alleviate poverty and hunger for smallholder farmers.
A history of Soweto’s Morris Isaacson High School
This project involves writing a history of one of Soweto’s most historically important secondary schools, Morris Isaacson High School.
Access of Individuals to the African International Justice
At the continental level, various legal instruments adopted within the framework of the African Union ((AU) guarantee a certain number of human and peoples’ rights.
Acknowledgment, Denial and Collective Memories of Mass Atrocities: Comparative Perspectives
Recent decades have witnessed systematic efforts to build institutions in response to mass atrocities, a justice cascade, and an unprecedented wave of apologies by heads of state.
APOCALYPSE 2016-2019: Decline of Jacob Zuma, Rise of South Africa?
The three years 2016 to 2019 will change South Africa more significantly than any other time since the dawn of democracy in 1994.
Archaeology of a Hungry Mind
Why and how did we (Homo sapiens) evolve into a species that is dependent on its ‘brains’ rather than its ‘brawn’ for our survival and successful spread across the globe?
Democratic Governance, Corruption, and Corruption Control Mechanisms in Africa: A Comparative Study
The 1990s were the starting point in the wave of new multiparty democracies in Africa.
Dog-human correlations in post-Soviet and post-apartheid literature and film
My research project falls into the interdisciplinary field of human-animal studies and deals with the discursive formation of human-dog correlation in socio-political discourse.
Expertise and Public Participation in Government Policymaking: South Africa in Comparative Context
The fellowship at STIAS will build on my prior work on comparative administrative law dealing with public participation in policymaking.
Falsified Medicine
The project focuses on falsified medicines - a growing health problem affecting both developed and developing countries.
Fear and Forgiveness – an Eastern Cape story
The killing of Irish nun and medical doctor, Sister Aidan Quinlan, in the East London riots of 1952 at the height of the ANC Defiance Campaign, is an event that has long been difficult in the telling.
From Indian Ocean to African Indian: Through the refracted lens of Capital Art Studio, Zanzibar
What happens when an Indian Ocean past meets an African Indian present in a collection of photographs by Ranchhod and Rohit Oza, family proprietors of Capital Art Studio who together visually captured the worldly place (and centre of the dhow trade and culture) of Zanzibar from 1930 until the present day?
From Sovereignty to Property (and back): The spatial transition of colonial and developmentalist claims over land
Central to the question of land grabs around the world is a tension between the sovereignty of States - and its internal manifestation in the form of eminent domain - and the property rights of individuals and communities.
Generation, Democratization and Gang Violence in the Shanties: Haiti and South Africa
In this project, I seek an opportunity at STIAS to write several chapters of a book based on a comparative account of the nexus between violence and democracy in two shantytowns in Haiti and South Africa.
It takes two: Theoretical and clinical advances in vulvodynia from an interpersonal perspective
Vulvodynia is a chronic pain condition that is characterized by recurrent vulvo-vaginal pain that does not have an identifiable cause.
Land Restitution and the Moral Modernity of the New South African State
The purpose of this project is to conclude a book-in-progress, entitled Land Restitution and the Moral Modernity of the New South African State.
Leveraging Sector Development for Urban Transformation in Africa
Africa along with Asia is the epicenter of rapid urbanization in the 21st century.
Lithium-ion batteries and the commercialization of science – a narrative
The project is to write an autobiographical narrative about the research and development of rechargeable lithium-ion batteries from a research curiosity to practical reality.
Local practices and institutions and their relevance for systems of social security. An investigation based on a case study of Senegal, Mali and Gabon .
This project has been built around the premise that by and large the present day social security systems in Africa are failing.
Peace agreements instead of “amicable agreement”: Consociationalism after civil war
How can democracy and social peace survive in societies divided by race, ethnicity, religion, region, language or ideology?
Rethinking Immigrant Integration in a Mass-Migration Era: Migrant Families in Comparative Perspective
In our era of mass migration, understanding migrant families’ efforts to forge and maintain meaningful social and civic ties is more important than ever.
System Change Africa: Evolution not revolution
Finding an African way of dealing with African urbanism: Complexity theory and systems thinking show how governments and people can work together to achieve something that neither could ever achieve alone.
The complex economics of the public domain
Prominent economists (and US trade negotiators) assert that bad things happen when creative works fall into the public domain.
The legacy and lessons of the Khulumani case
During its 12-year trajectory, the Khulumanicase has excited interest worldwide.
The Power of Injury: Memory, Decolonization, and the Challenges of Modernity in Africa
This book examines the political and social effects of Africa’s prioritization of the experience of colonization in its response to the world, and analyzes the role of Nelson Mandela’s notion of forgiveness in Africa’s inevitable path to modernity.
Three Paths to Constitutionalism
There are three paths to constitutionalism in the modern world.
Traditional Authorities and Decentralisation in Southern Africa
The proposed research project is a study of the recent resurgence of traditional authorities in southern Africa.
2017
3D Print a House for Development (3D - H - 4D): Prototyping Climate Change Adaptation in African Urban Planning
The news that a Chinese company has successfully 3D printed ten houses in 24 hours rapidly, cheaply and with a bare-bones workforce offers a window into the future for sustainable development in Africa’s urban planning.
A Social History of Democratic South African Told in Nine Lives
The book I am writing is a social history of the first two decades of South African democracy.
Addressing the Need for a Rapid Diagnostic for Childhood Tuberculosis
TB rates are at unprecedented high levels in sub Saharan Africa [2].
African Leapfrogging Index to Sustainability (ALIS)
Centre for Complex Systems in Transition of Stellenbosch University and the International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics of Lund University are currently developing a regional project on Distributed Renewable Economy for Africa’s Transformation.
Assessment of social-economic impacts of invasive cactus (Opuntia engelmannii) to rural livelihoods and their environment in the Drylands of Kenya
Invasive alien plant species are one of the major drivers of global ecosystem change and the most serious threats to ecological, economic and social well-being.
Comparative computational study of thrombosis in cerebral and abdominal aortic Aneurysms
Thrombosis is closely linked to aneurysm evolution.
Constitution-building in Africa: Corruption and constitutionalism in Africa – Revisiting control measures and strategies
The focus of the 2017 seminar under this project is on the theme, Corruption and constitutionalism in Africa: Revisiting control measures and strategies.
Developing an International Prognostic Scoring System for Thalassemia: A New Tool for Revisiting Classification of Thalassemia
Β-thalassemia is classified into three phenotypes, depending on the severity of symptoms: 1) thalassemia major (TM); 2) thalassemia Intermedia (TI); 3) β trait or thalassemia minor (Tm).
Disability and reproduction in Africa: A multi-methods invest igation to identify, describe and determine the sexual, reproductive and maternal healthcare needs and challenges of women with disability in Ghana
Persons with disabilities (PWDs) constitute 15% of the worlds population.
Faith and Fabric
Relations between faith and the fabric – whether political, social, economic, cultural or moral – of communities, societies and the global world are increasingly studied in many disciplines, not primarily because of the popular claim that religion is back and the fact that the so-called secularization theory is today rejected by many, but rather since many scholars increasingly recognize the public role of faith, not in the sense of religious convictions, communities and traditions, but in the sense of basic axioms and values, core beliefs and commitments (Taylor), cardinal convictions (Huber), notions of the sacred (Joas), in short, the faith of the faithless (Critchley).
Health in All policies: Healthy housing policies to address the risk and burden of infectious and non-communicable diseases
Urbanization is restructuring the nature of cities, particularly in South Africa (SA) and Africa, where informality is on the rise.
Interrogating Blackness, Locating ‘Africanness’: Call-and-Response in the (literary) works of Toni Morrison and Zoë Wicomb, NoViolet Bulawayo, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Taiye Selasi
This project offers a fresh, comparative, transatlantic and transnational analysis of leading African-American author, Toni Morrison’s, work on blackness through the diasporic lens of contemporary female writers of the African diaspora, Zoë Wicomb, NoViolet Bulawayo, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Taiye Selasi.
Jurisdictional Rivalries between Company and State
This contribution to the research theme Crossing Borders, centres on two questions posed explicitly by the subtheme, Boundaries and Legal Authority in a Global Context.
Nietzsche and the alleged European nature of nihilism
I will elaborate Nietzsche’s idea of the European character of nihilism in discussion with philosophers from other cultures, or at least from other parts of the world (including Brazil and South Africa), who all are interested and prepared to cooperate.
Prevalence of phytoparasitic nematodes and damage levels on vegetable crops in the southwest Ethiopia: An approach towards development of a sustainable nematode management
Various vegetable crops are grown in the southwest part of Ethiopia.
Removal of pollutants from drinking water by clay minerals using metal oxide nanoparticles
Contamination of drinking water with chemical and biological pollutants is a serious problem of the present century.
Retrospective and Prospective Reflections on Higher Education in Africa
The paper begins with a historical background attempting to provide an African wide perspective unifying the often fragmented contributions of North Africa, South Africa and the rest of the continent.
The African Resistance Movement: A Cultural History
This project (and the book that will follow) is a cultural history of the ARM, the African Resistance Movement, which despite the elevation of its name, was a group of no more than fifty mainly liberal , anti - communist idealists who formed an underground movement in South Africa in 1960 and embarked on a campaign of sabotage aimed at government installations (pylons and railway lines).
The challenges and options in relation to water security for groundwater-dependent urban settlements located in fragile regions of Kenya
Many towns in Kenyas arid and semi-arid lands (and to a lesser extent, sub-humid zones) rely largely or exclusively on groundwater for public and private water supply.
The public sphere in African political thought
This research project aim is to contribute to the quest for a viable political philosophy for contemporary Africa.
The Revolution of Information Economics: The Past and the Future
The economics of information has constituted a revolution in economics, providing explanations of phenomena that previously had been unexplained and upsetting longstanding presumptions, including that of market efficiency, with profound implications for economic policy.