Meet the Authors

Professor Hugo ka Canham

Hugo ka Canham is a writer and professor at the Institute for Social and Health Sciences, University of South Africa. His work is located along the fault lines of black studies, African feminism, African and queer theorisations. He studies the phenomenology of living at the margins of human value, suffering and death. His work is invested in detonating the binaries between the human and the natural, multispecies world. It may be understood within the transdisciplinary framework of Black Planetary Studies. His essays and short stories can be found in a range of publications. His latest book, Riotous Deathscapes is published by Duke University Press and copublished by Wits University Press.

Doctor Nompumelelo Zodwa Radebe

Nompumelelo Zodwa Radebe is a Senior Lecturer and Chair of the Department in the Department of Anthropology and Archaeology at the University of South Africa. Prior to her teaching career, she worked as a researcher for various institutions in South Africa including the University of Pretoria (Centre for Study of AIDS), the Medical Research Council, and the University of Cape Town (Children’s Institute). She is a member of the African Decolonial Research Networks (ADERN). In 2017 she was a visiting student researcher at UC Berkeley in the Department of Ethnic Studies. The eight months spent at UC Berkeley played a pivotal role in sharpening her decolonial tools of analysis. In 2021 she won an award in Teaching and Learning Festival at the University of South Africa on curriculum transformation.

She is part of the Teaching Advancement at University (TAU) Fellowship Programme which is part of the Ministerial Statement on the University Capacity Development Programme (UCDP). Her publications include a co-authored book titled Still to be Named: An Exploration of African Epistemologies using Simphiwe Dana’s selected works and a co-edited book titled: Azibuye Emasisweni: Reclaiming our Space and Centering our Knowledge. Edited by Zethu Cakata; Nompumelelo Z. Radebe and Magobe B. Ramose. Her research interest is in exploring African epistemology to expand on theories that address global challenges. Drawing from her anthropological expertise, she uses isiZulu to theorise and provide evidence of the African ways of knowing and being in the world.

Professor Zethu Cakata

Zethu Cakata currently works as a Full Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of South Africa. She has extensive experience in the field of research and has worked as both an academic and a researcher in institutions in several institutions including, Statistics South Africa, Department of Psychology at the University of Pretoria and Human Sciences Research Council, Reproductive Health Research Unit and the University of the Western Cape. Zethu Cakata’s scholarship is in the field of African Epistemologies and has produced work that advocates for the usage of indigenous languages for epistemic purposes.

She has demonstrated this advocacy in publications such as  The place of indigenous languages in the new curriculum: An African Psychology Case Study,“Safely Nestled in isiXhosa is the Psychology of a people”, When Ukucelwa Ukuzalwa Becomes Bride Price: Spiritual Meaning Lost in Translation, Ubugqirha: Healing Beyond the Western Gaze, South Africa Belongs to All Who Speak Colonial Languages, Childhoods Rooted in Land and  recently published books titled “Still to be Named: An exploration of African Epistemologies using Simphiwe Dana’s selected works and Azibuye Emasisweni: Reclaiming our space, centering our knowledge. This work has earned her the Unisa Scholarship Award in 2022 and the Association for Black Psychologists Scholarship Award in 2019.