Authors

Makhosazana Xaba

 

Makhosazana Xaba is currently a Research Associate at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WiSER). She has published three poetry collections: These hands, Tongues of their Mothers and The Alkalinity of Bottled Water. She edited Like the untouchable wind: an anthology of poems in 2016 which was translated into Spanish. In 2019 she edited Our Words, Our Worlds: Writing on Black South African Women Poets, 2000 – 2018.

Her poems have been translated into isiXhosa, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin, Turkish and Setswana. In 2014 her debut collection, Running and Other Stories was a co-winner of the SALA Nadine Gordimer Short Story Award. She is a patron of the Johannesburg Review of Books and holds an MA in Creative Writing (with distinction) from Wits University. Before turning to creative writing, she worked in the NGO sector on women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights; developed training manuals and published extensively.

Martha Mbangiseni Dzivhani

 

I am a widow with two daughters, currently self-employed managing a company that focuses on socio-economic empowerment for women. I hold a Master’s Degree in Community Health with the then Rand Afrikaans University, now called University of Johannesburg.

I served in the Presidency, in the Ministry of Women, Children and People with Disabilities as the Chief Director for eight years, worked in various women NGOs managing programmes of gender equality, Violence against Women and Children, capacity building, material development, gender mainstreaming, advocacy and activism for twenty years. I gained a wealth of experience in the areas of Women empowerment and Development including Monitoring and Evaluation, Research and Policy development.

After having gained the wealth of experience on women empowerment and development, I represented the Ministry of Women, Children and People with Disability in various international forums including the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) in New York, SADC, Parliamentary Portfolio Committees and Cabinet. I successfully lead the development and ratification of Gender Protocol in SADC Heads of State in 2008 under the chairmanship of President T Mbeki. The Gender Protocol is currently being implemented by member states that ratified the protocol.

Myesha Jenkins

 

Myesha Jenkins is a poet and spoken word performer, known for her feminist outlook and a writing style that is open, descriptive, revealing and sometimes challenging.

In 2017 she edited the ground-breaking, To Breathe Into Another Voice: A South African Anthology of Jazz Poetry, featuring the work of 45 poets, from all over the nation, writing about the impact of jazz in their lives, and published by Real African Publishers.

She has published two poetry collections, Breaking the surface, (Timbila,2005) and Dreams of Flight (Geko, 2011.) She has also been anthologized in We Are (Penguin, 2010) and Isis X (Botsotso, 2006).

As a founding member of the Feela Sistah Spoken Word Collective, Myesha encouraged women’s writing and she has curated projects and created platforms to highlight the work of black women poets.

For five years (2011 – 2016), she produced Poetry in the Air on SAfm to showcase poets in celebration of South African Women’s Month.

Myesha currently co-hosts the Jozi House of Poetry, a non-competitive, woman-friendly, monthly, poetry session.

In 2015, the Out There Sessions: Poetry and Jazz in Orbit was launched as another performance platform featuring the collaboration of poets and jazz musicians.  It continues in the present.

In 2013, Myesha won the Mbokodo Award for Women in the Arts in the Poetry category.

Another highlight of Myesha’s career has been engagement with Arts for Humanity where poets collaborated with visual artists on projects focused on Children and another on the SA Constitution.

She has been interviewed in print and electronic media and been the subject of an independent short film and several research projects.

Myesha has lived and worked in Johannesburg since1993 when she relocated from California.

She died on 5^th September 2020.

Professor Siphamandla Zondi

 

Professor Siphamandla Zondi is a professor at the University of Pretoria. He coordinates the Department’s Institute for Strategic and Political Affairs, which analyses strategic dynamics in national, continental and international affairs including decision-making, leadership, norms, values, and agency. He also oversees the Centre for the Study of Governance Innovation and the Centre for Mediation in Africa. Between 2004 and 2016, he worked first as the head of the Africa programme of the Institute for Global Dialogue associated with Unisa and later as the head of the Institute itself. He was previously employed to lead research on regional integration at the Africa Institute between 2000 and 2003. His intellectual interests lie in the area of Africa's international relations as well as theory building in relation to decolonization and transformation of the modern world and its systems.

His recent published work focused on the diplomacy of common positions at the African Union, decolonising diplomatic theory and practice, south-south agency in global affairs, African voices in international relations and the paradigm of peace and dialogue. Zondi is the co-editor (with Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni) of the recently published book entitled Decolonising the University, its Knowledge and Disciplines (Carolina Press) – available on Amazon. He is the current editor of the journal, Latin American Report, and is on editorial boards of several international journals. He serves on the National Planning Commission of South Africa with a special focus on regional and international partnerships. He is also on the Steering Committee of the Council on International Relations, which advises the Minister of International Relations and Cooperation on international affairs. He was appointed by the Minister of Arts and Culture as one of the Social Cohesion Advocates, promoting dialogue and activities designed to help the nation-building and social cohesion endeavor. He recently submitted a book manuscript on NGOs, Africa and Global Power and is finalizing another on African Agency in World Affairs. He was recently appointed as a mentor in the NIHSS doctoral mentorship programme. He is a passionate mentor of young thought leaders and committed activists in the cause for decolonial diversal futures.

Prof Siphamandla Zondi has recently been appointed as the Chairperson of the South African BRICS Think Tank Council (SABTT) at the National Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) and an official representative in the BRICS Think Tank Council (BTTC).

 

Research focus: 

Africa's international relations/negotiations; Decolonial political thought including Afrocentric, black feminist, critical race theory, subaltern thought etc. and Critical studies of global south agency including IBSA, BRICS, NAM, G77, etc.

 

Selected publications:

• 2017: Rising power and Peacebuilding: Breaking the Mold? In: South African Peacebuilding Approaches: Evolution and Lessons, (eds) C. de Coning & C. Call. New York: Springer. (pp. 107-125).
• 2017: From MDGs to Sustainable Development Goals. The Trevails of International Development. In: The UN, the Idea of Development" Between Dissensus and Consensus, (eds) S. Zondi & P. Mthembu. Pretoria: Unisa Press. (pp. 18-42).
• 2017: 'Of demons and angels: The "International" gaze on electoral democracy in Africa', International journal of African Renaissance Studies, 12 (1), pp. 7 - 21.
• 2017:  'African Union approaches to peacebuilding: Efforts at shifting the continent towards decolonial peace', African Journal on Conflict Resolution, 17 (1), pp. 105 - 131.
• 2016: ‘Ubuntu and Sumak Kasaw: The Inter-Parliamentary Union and the Search for a Global South Humanist Paradigm of Development’, South African Journal of International Affairs, 23 (1).
• 2016: ‘A Decolonial Turn in Diplomatic Theory: Unmasking Epistemic Injustice’, Journal of Contemporary History, 41 (1).
• 2016: Decolonial Turn and the Case for an Afrocentric Analysis of African Integration’. Decolonising the African University, Knowledge Systems and Disciplines, Durham: Carolina Academic Press. (co-edited)
• 2016: ‘Deliberate Coexistence of War and Peace in Chad: the Case of the Tripoli Accord’ in. Peace Agreements and Durable Peace in Africa, Pietermaritzburg: University of Kwazulu-Natal Press, pp. 85-126. (co-edited)
• 2016: ‘The UN, the Idea of Development: Between Dissensus and Consensus’ in From the MDGs to Development Agenda 2030, Pretoria: Africa Institute. (co-edited)
• 2016: ‘The SA Position on the Post-2015 Development Agenda: An Agenda for Transforming Power Relations’, in From the MDGs to Development Agenda 2030, Pretoria: Africa Institute. (co-edited)
• 2015: ‘Africanity, Pan-Africanism and African Renaissance: South Africa's African Agenda under Mbeki and Zuma’, in South African Foreign Policy Review, Volume II, Pretoria: AISA. (co-edited)
• 2015: ‘Principles and Practice: South Africa’s Foreign Policy after two decades’, in South African Foreign Policy Review, Volume II. Pretoria: AISA (co-authored)
• 2015: ‘South Africa’s Foreign Policy, Principles: An Invitation to Conversations’, in South African Foreign Policy Review, Volume II. Pretoria: AISA. (co-authored)
• 2015: The Indian Ocean Region and Opportunities for Global South – African Development, in Rumley, D. The Political Economy of Indian Ocean Maritime Africa. Curtin University: Pentagon Press.
• 2014: ‘Through the Shadow of Death: the ANC’s underground struggle’, Ngcaweni, B. The Future We Chose: Emerging Perspectives on the Centenary of the ANC, Pretoria: Africa Institute of South Africa.
• 2014: ‘Assessing African Health Governance amid Global Biopolitics’, in Kirton, J.J., Cooper, A.F., Lisk, F. and Besada, H. (eds.). Moving Health Sovereignty in Africa: Disease, Governance, Climate Change, London: Ashgate, pp. 57-84.
• 2014: ‘The ANC Centenary: Treading the Waters of History’ in Treading the Waters of History: Perspectives on the ANC @100, Pretoria: Africa Institute. (co-edited)
• 2014: ‘ANC’s “Progressive Internationalism”: A Paradigm of Struggle in International Relations”, in Treading the Waters of History: Perspectives on he ANC @100, Pretoria: Africa Institute. (co-edited)
• 2013: 'Common Positions as African Agency in International Negotiations,' in African Agency in International Politics. Routledge Studies in African Politics and International Relations. London: Routledge. (co-edited)

2013: ‘South Africa and Southern Africa: a question of leadership,’ FES Research Paper.