The third joint Institutional Public Lecture (IPL) in honour of Dr Phyllis Ntantala and Prudence Mabele is a prestigious event co-hosted by Nelson Mandela University,through the Centre for Women and Gender Studies and SARChI Chair in African Feminist Imagination, and the University of Fort Hare, through the SARChI Chair in Sexualities, Genders and Queer Studies.
The July event aims to celebrate women’s intellectual contributions to society, as well as speak to the Centre for Women and Gender Studies (CWGS), the DSI-NRF SARChI Chair African Feminist Imagination (AFEMI), and the DSI-NRF SARChI Chair in Sexualities, Genders and Queer Studies’ objective to spotlight the women and queer communities who have been deliberately erased or dismissed in South African and, more broadly, African history.
The 2024 theme, Black Feminist Work(s), draws inspiration from the life and work of Dr Phyllis Ntantala and Prudence Mabele who, despite living in different periods and working in various parts of the world, have greatly contributed to the liberation of women; those living with HIV, and other marginalised communities.
The theme celebrates the work that Black feminists have done and continue to do to (re)make the world, and as such, the public lecture serves not only as a revisiting of the work of Black feminists, but also as a platform for multi-generational conversations on how we may translate Black feminist theory into praxis.
The 2024 IPL will feature guest speaker(s), Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah and Koketso Moeti, whose ongoing work builds on Black feminist thought and traditions to address key socio-cultural, economic, and political issues that affect African women.
Nana Sekyiamah is a Ghanaian feminist writer and blogger, who co-founded the award-winning blog Adventures from the Bedrooms of African Women, to spark open conversations on sex and sexuality among African women.
She also serves as the Director of Communications at the Association for Women's Rights in Development, is a member of the Black Feminism Forum Working Group, and has written for several media platforms, including Open Democracy, This is Africa, and The Guardian.
Born in London and raised in Ghana, Nana Sekyiamah earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Communications and Cultural Studies from the University of North London and a Master of Science degree in Gender and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Moreover, Sekyiamah also penned the Communications Handbook for Women’s Rights Organisations (2010) and The Sex Lives of African Women (2021) and has published short stories in various anthologies across the globe.
In 2011, Sekyiamah was named one of “Ghana’s Change Makers” by Arise magazine and in 2022, she was named in the BBC’s 100 Women list as one of the world’s inspiring and influential women of the year.
Koketso Moeti is a writer and campaigner who has served as a consultant on governance, civic action, and communication for an array of national and international organisations and is the founder of the message-based civic engagement tool Amandla.mobi.
Moeti founded the tool in 2014, after she began using her cell phone to organise against eviction in her Rooigrond community and, here, she found that community members were likely to participate in public consultation periods when they were provided with the tools to organise.
As such, Amandla.mobi connects users via WhatsApp and text message and enables them to organise on issues, such as eviction, gender violence, and data costs. By 2019, the app had around 300,000 users and one of Moeti’s major campaigns led to the South African government to fully subsidise the cost of the transition from analogue to digital television for poorer communities.
As an alumnus of the Inclusive Global Leadership Initiative (IGLI) Summer Institute, hosted by the University of Denver, Moeti has also published her writings in Al Jazeera, The Guardian, City Press, and Africa is a Country, to name a few examples.
Her work on civic engagement and activism led to her being named an Obama Fellow and an Aspen Institute New Voices senior fellow, being selected for the 2019 Tech for Global Good cohort and serving as an expert advisor to the World Economic Forum’s ‘Partnering with Civil Society in the Fourth Industrial Revolution’ initiative.
The work of the CWGS and AFEMI Chair is greatly informed by the vision of Nelson Mandela University to be a “dynamic, African University recognised for [its] cutting-edge knowledge towards a sustainable future”.
At the University of Fort Hare, the SARChI Chair in Sexualities, Genders and Queer Studies is aimed at stimulating research and interest on issues and studies related to sexual diversity and gender identities in Africa. The Chair further invigorates the University’s call for renewal. As a collaboration between Nelson Mandela University and the University of Fort Hare, the IPL aims to:
-
Systematically knit together women’s voices to inform the feminist futures and, relatedly, to counter the erasure of women’s historic contributions to the building of contemporary society.
-
Celebrate women’s voices as acts of intentional, powerful resistance as they call for a freer future for us all.
-
Engage in intellectual projects that stimulate discussions on the histories and roles of women and other marginalised, often-disregarded groups.
-
Foster a long-term intellectual partnership with the guest speakers to build capacity for research and mentorship among academics, researchers, and scholars at the Centre for Women and Gender Studies, the SARChI Chair in African Feminist Imagination, and the SARChI Chair in Sexualities, Genders and Queer Studies.
The public lecture will be held on the Nelson Mandela University Ocean Sciences Campus, on 25 July 2024. For IPL enquiries, please email Wendy.Adams@mandela.ac.za.