The WISER Podcast | Season 4 | The Collection
This week we release Season 4 of The WISER Podcast. The Season has offered mixed formats as we have responded to a rollercoaster of events: we have pondered on the July uprisings in South Africa, marked Women’s month and the struggle against GBV in this country and elsewhere, celebrated WISER’s 20th anniversary, as well as featured new work on Zimbabwe after Mugabe and on Botswanan artist Meleko Mokgosi’s paintings. Taken together, the Season offers a window into the wide range of WISER’s work, workings and history. All episodes of the final Season of the year are featured at this link: https://wiser.wits.ac.za/
As we close this Season, we would like to express our gratitude for the work done by our WISER Podcast designer, Bronwyn Kotzen. Each week, Bronwyn produces exceptional design work for our next episode, finding a visual language which captures an aspect or more of the episode at hand. One of the best moments for The Podcast Team is awaiting Bronwyn’s banner designs for that week, turning the behind the scenes hard work of making the podcast into a visually rendered reality. Bronwyn is an architect, researcher and writer with a Masters in Architecture from Wits and a Master of Science from the LSE. She is currently working on a PhD entitled Liquid Concrete which traces the flow of cement across sub-Saharan Africa, as a lens through which to examine the relationship between materiality, science, technology, and space. She is also co-editor and project manager on the forthcoming five part book series, Translating Technology in Africa. Sending our warm thanks to Bronwyn from the podcast team – Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Isabel Hofmeyr and Achille Mbembe.
Podcasts
This week’s episode is the third in our series celebrating WISER At Twenty.
Today we hear from Najibha Deshmukh, WISER’s Senior Administrator and Adila Deshmukh, WISER’s Financial Manager. Najibha and Adila, who are sisters, give us their take on life at WISER, offering an inside view of everyday life, from both the front desk and the Institute’s financial office. In a richly nuanced and finely observed - and often very funny – set of observations, they reveal aspects of their own stories over the last two decades, of the pressures and pleasures of their jobs, and of the lives, minds and foibles of academics at work. They talk about the joys of seeing students graduate and become professors – and about some of the strangest requests they received over the years. It’s a wonderful listen and will give you a new perspective on the academy – enjoy!
The members of The WiSER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Isabel Hofmeyr, Tinashe Mushakavanhu and Achille Mbembe.
Welcome to Season 4 of The WISER podcast. We begin this season with a number of event podcasts, capturing key debates happening at WISER on matters of urgent national importance.
Today we release a two-part series, Uprising in South Africa, in which commentators reflect on the crises in KZN province which manifested so powerfully in the events of a few weeks ago, variously referred to as insurrection, food riots and looting sprees.
The podcast is an edited version of an event hosted by WISER, The Forge and the C150 Chair in Gender and African Politics and convened by Shireen Hassim who holds that Chair. While the intensity of the events that erupted in those weeks has receded, the participants in the discussions we listen to today remind us that the causes are systemic and ongoing and we would do well to keep them at the forefront of our analyses going forward. Speakers in today’s podcasts are Itumeleng Mahabane, Glen Robbins, Thina Nzo, Ryan Brunette, S’bu Zikode, Kira Erwin, Monica Laganparsad and Elisha Kunene.
For Ryan Brunett’s short video, which many of the speakers refer to, see here.
Today we release the full suite of podcasts that have made up Season 3 of The WISER Podcast. In this 2021 edition, we have offered longer, 28-minute podcasts focusing on a particular theme or concept and drawing on multiple voices as we do so. These podcasts have appeared in either a two-part series or as a single episode. In case you missed any or would like to have a record of all of them for your reference, please see them at the link above. Our podcasts have attracted more than 17 600 listeners so far from many parts of the world.
In September we will release our final season of the year, Season 4.
You can find our WISER transcripts here.
The members of the WISER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Isabel Hofmeyr, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Mpho Matsipa, Achille Mbembe and Bronwyn Kotzen.
Today we release the next episode of The WISER Podcast entitled On Water: International Contemporary Writing.
The episode focuses on oral poetry from the Kenyan coast and its relation to indigenous marine conservation knowledges; black travel writing from the Indian Ocean world in the early twentieth century; learning to surf and read waves in Cape Town; and the recent rise in postcolonial fiction about mermaids.
Each of these topics, and many more, form part of a special issue of the magazine Wasafiri on "Water", edited by Charne Lavery and Stephnaie Jones and available here: https://www.wasafiri.org/product/wasafiri-issue-106/. The issue covers multiple forms of writing on water from around the world - from the Philippines to the Somali coast, Kenya to Antarctica - in a time of planetary change. It forms part of the Oceanic Humanities for the Global South project (www.oceanichumanities.com) at WiSER .
The podcast features contributions from Charne Lavery (University of Pretoria and WISER, Wits), Jauquelyne Kosgei (WISER, Wits), Asma Sayed (Kwantlen Polytechnic University), Hedley Twidle (UCT) and Betsy Nies (University of North Florida).
The members of the WISER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Isabel Hofmeyr, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Mpho Matsipa, Achille Mbembe and Bronwyn Kotzen.
Today we release The WISER Podcast on China Africa Futures : thinking beyond conspiracy.
The episode focuses on some of the most prominent themes in global and local preoccupations with the models of government that China holds out for African states and peoples. We focus, in particular, on the threats and limits of state surveillance for African countries as they show themselves around the COVID19 pandemic, and the growing international concerns about the eYuan, the new digital currency championed by the People's Bank of China.
The podcast is a conversation between Keith Breckenridge (Wits), Iginio Gagliardone (Wits), Mingwei Huang (Dartmouth) and Bulelani Jili (Harvard).
The members of the WISER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Isabel Hofmeyr, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Mpho Matsipa, Achille Mbembe and Bronwyn Kotzen.
Today we release the second episode of our two-part series of The WISER Podcast on Regions2050: mobility, extraction, circulation.
The episode focuses on the Congo Basin eco-region of Africa, the world’s second largest rainforest block after the Amazon. In particular, the podcast examines how significant demographic, ecological, political and economic changes in this region are linked to climate. It also explores the interactions between human populations and the environments in which they live.
The podcast is a conversation between Rogers Orock (Department of Anthropology, Wits), Achille Mbembe (WISER) and Joshua Walker (Congo Research Group, Center on International Cooperation, New York University). All are members of the research cluster on the Congo Basin within WISER’s Regions2050 project.
The members of the WISER Podcast team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Isabel Hofmeyr, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Mpho Matsipa, Achille Mbembe and Bronwyn Kotzen.
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