Photo: Give a Child a Future / UWC

Institutional Leadership

While service work tends to be the least loved part of any academic position, it is essential to building more socially just institutional and departmental cultures. My approach to service is to help make my university as caring, supportive and generous as possible. Universities are the everyday spaces in which academics work and students learn -- and how they operate matters a great deal. When institutions or processes aren't working as well as they should be -- and ego, habit, or audit culture stands in the way of dignity and justice -- we must allow them to break and rebuild them better.

Currently, as the Postgraduate Coordinator for Geography, my service work is geared toward the development and professionalisation of Masters and PhD students at UWC. In this role, I serve on the Arts Faculty Higher Degrees Committee and the Department of Historical Studies Ethics Committee. Previously, at Durham, I served as the Deputy Chair of the Health and Safety Committee. In this work, I try to insulate my students and colleagues (as much as possible) against the neoliberalization of the university. 

Right to the Discipline

Aidan Africa, Kolosa Ntombini, Bridgette Lebeko, Thuthuzelekani Mvimbi, Musfiqah Majiet and I are recipients of the Antipode Foundation “Right to the Discipline” Grant.

Training next generation Academics

Photo: Uwc.ac.za

UWC Postgraduate Students

I am currently supervising the following students 
- 1 PhD student 
​- 1 honours student

Photo: Durham.ac.uk

Durham Graduate Students

I supervised the following students to completion:
- 1 PhD student (2024)
- 3 MA students (2023)
- 10 honours students (2022)

Photo: Engineering.com

Applying for grad school?

If you are interested in studying at UWC, please get in touch. I can supervise dissertations in economic geographies, development geographies, urban geographies and postcolonial geographies.

BUilding Postgraduate communities

Black Geographies Collective

One of the most important subfields in Geography today is Black Geographies. While this has primarily emerged in the Americas, there is a significant opportunity for South Africa to lead global conversations about race, racism and place-making. I am the faculty support person for a cohort of postgraduate students at UWC and UCT, who are stretching this disciplinary subfield. We have received funding from the Antipode Foundation to support a multi-campus reading group, seminar series and  conference with local and international speakers.

Proposal Workshops

I lead weekly proposal writing workshop for all first year Masters and PhD students in the Geography department. We meet weekly to learn about what makes a good proposal and how to write one. Two people share their drafts each week, and everyone else reads and comments on them. Those who share their proposals learn how to develop them further, while those who comment on them to learn how to give good, constructive feedback. 

Writing Seminars

With Phindezwa Mnyaka from the Department of Historical Studies, I co-lead weekly writing seminars for all advanced Masters and PhD students in Geography and History. Each week two people share their writing and everyone else reads and comments on their drafts. Students learn from one another about how to develop strong arguments and mobilise supporting evidence. The space also serves as a regular, reliable support network and a low-stakes place to submit early work and receive generous feedback.

Postgraduate conference

Each year, I work with our MA and PhD students to plan and run their own conference to present their work. The students choose the theme, arrange themselves into sessions, decided on titles for those sessions, learn how to chair panels and field positive questions, collect abstracts and biographies from panelists, design and print the program, pick the caterers and food, and run the technologies. For many of my students, this is the first time they have ever attended (much less) planned a conference.

Department Handbook and website

One of the most difficult parts of completing a postgraduate degree in South Africa is understanding and adhering to the rules and procedures. This includes filing considerable paperwork on time, particularly in the first and last years of the degree. I developed an online handbook to explain how all of these processes work, with links to all of the forms that must be completed and sent to the Arts Higher Degrees Committee. I also created a department wide progress tracking tool to understand what steps each student needs to complete in each semester.

Service to the Discipline

Journal Reviews

​Nature Human Behavior, World Development, The Professional Geographer, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, African Geographical Review, The Geographical Journal, Race and Ethnic Studies, The DuBois Review, Science Technology and Society, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Global Social Policy, the Journal of International Development, Social Policy and Administration, Progress in Economic Geography, Journal of Southern African Studies, ACME: A Journal of Critical Geographies.

Photo: Neal Patel / Flickr

External Examiner

External Examiner, Masters Dissertation, Department of Sociology, University of Johannesburg 
External Reviewer, Funding Proposal, South African Medical Research Council
External Reviewer, PhD Proposal, Geography Department, University of the Witwatersrand