FHISER STAFF

PROFESSOR LESLIE BANK

Professor Leslie Bank is Director of FHISER. A social anthropologist by training, his main research interests are in the field of urban studies, although he is currently managing a large research project investigating land tenure and land reform in the Eastern Cape.

Prof Bank is the leader of a National Research Foundation (NRF) focus area on Food Security Livelihoods and Identity in the Eastern Cape and is also supervising a number of post-graduate students exploring issues of material culture and urban experience in the post apartheid city. He has edited a number of special collections on rural livelihoods and land reform as well as a recent special collection of historical essays on the Eastern Cape.

Prof Bank received his doctorate from the University of Cape Town in 2002. He has served as a research fellow at the University of Cambridge's Centre for African Studies and as the Sir Harry Oppenheimer senior research fellow at St Antony's College at Oxford University. As such, he has extensive experience with the management and supervision of research projects.

In 2006, Prof Bank received the University of Fort Hare Vice-Chancellor 's Senior Research Medal. He currently co-ordinates one of the Institute's four research programmes - the Urban Renewal and Local Economic Development Programme.

LATEST RESEARCH

Matrifocality, Patriarchy and Globalisation: Changing Family Forms in a South African City
A paper delivered at the Social Trends Institute's Family Structures and Globalisation: Africa Conference in Barcelona during March 2008.  

"The paper focuses on globalisation and changing family structures in the coastal South African city of East London . In the paper, I am especially interested in the fate of the multi-generational, matrifocal family, which was ubiquitous in the townships across South Africa in the 1940s and 1950s, but disappeared in the era of apartheid urban planning and restructuring."    FULL TEXT

Professor Gary Minkley is a Senior Research Associate responsible for the Culture, Heritage and Social Transformation Programme. He is also the leader of an award-winning NRF niche area in this field. Within the Institute he supervises a number of post-graduate students and initiates research projects.

Recently, Professor Minkley was appointed as the University of Fort Hare’s Director of Post-Graduate Studies in the Govan Mbeki Research and Development Centre (GMRDC).

Professor Minkley is a historian who received his doctorate from UCT in 1994. He has an innovative research style and his interests include activities focusing simultaneously on the “Border” as a historical Eastern Cape locality, as well as the more symbolic boundaries of current thinking and margins between disciplines and contemporary theories.

Professor Minkley was recently awarded the University of Fort Hare 2007 Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Medal. He is a well-published author, appearing regularly in international journals and has presented numerous papers to national and international forums. He serves on various local and national boards and organisations, including the Robben Island Museum Academic Review Committee.

DR NOLWAZI MKHWANAZI

Dr Nolwazi Mkhwanazi is a Senior Researcher. She was awarded a doctorate from Cambridge University in 2005, after which she took up a post-doctoral research fellowship in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of Cape Town. Her research interests lie in the fields of medical and development anthropology.

To date, Dr Mkhwanazi's research has focused on providing an account of the richness and complexity of people's everyday lives in order to compliment existing bio-medical and/or developmental models.

Some of Dr Mkhwanazi's previous research has examined the experiences of pregnancy and childbirth, from the perspective of women and of the professionals who provide maternal health care. She has also conducted research on the welfare of children defined as ‘in need of care; and on youth and sexuality education. Nolwazi is currently writing a book about teenage pregnancy in South Africa.

DR SARAH BOLOGNA

Sarah Bologna, who read for a PhD at the University of Cape Town, is a researcher with the Institute, utilising her interest in people and parks to enrich the institute's Land Livelihoods and Rural Development Porgramme.

Sarah undertook her undergraduate studies at the School of African and Asian Studies at the University of Sussex in the UK where she developed an interest in Africa and rural development.

Her PhD entitled Nature and Power: A Critique of ‘People-Based Conservation' at South Africa's Madikwe Game Reserve, examines the contention that conservation strategies, managed as sustainable and economically profitable businesses, can sustain both ecological and development objectives.

Nkosazana Ngcongolo is the Institute’s Research Manager. She graduated in 2007 with a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Rhodes University where she majored in Information Systems and Economics.

Nkosazana provides vital day-to-day administrative and budgeting support to senior researchers as well as ongoing research projects and FHISER’s post-graduate programme.

These are duties in which she proved herself highly competent while still attached to the Institute as a student, earning herself her present position on graduation.

Nkosazana is currently studying part-time towards an Honours degree in Economics (Financial Markets) with the University of Fort Hare.