The WiSER Podcast | Season 5 | Episode 1

In this episode, Caio Simões de Araújo discusses the politics of infrastructure in Southern Africa, taking as an entry point the Maputo-Katembe bridge, inaugurated in 2018. Araújo argues that the bridge is part of a renewed public investment in infrastructure enabled by Chinese cooperation in Africa. Yet, rather than a straightforward road into the future, the bridge is embedded in a highly complex set of temporal landscapes  - ones that warrant close and careful analysis.  

 

Caio Simoes De Araujo is a post-doctoral researcher in the Regions2050 programme at WiSER. He is the editor of A Luta Continua, 40 anos depois: Histórias Entrelaçadas da África Austral (Alcance, 2017). Related to this podcast is a short experimental film "The bridge", which is about the inauguration of the bridge back in 2018. The film is included in the online exhibition, Archive of Forgetfulness: https://archiveofforgetfulness.com  

 

We are pleased to announce that later this week, Season Five of The WiSER Podcast will be launched. The Institute will release episodes every ten days or so between June and October. The first four seasons of The WiSER Podcast attracted over 28 000 listeners and we invite you to tune in to our new season’s offerings, featuring the work of WiSER researchers. Most episodes will be 15 minutes long and can be listened to via a range of social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Apple and Spotify. We encourage you to circulate episodes you find compelling via your own channels. Upcoming episodes include -

Rekgotsofetse Chikane in discussion with his father Rev Frank Chikane focuses on the extraordinary fact that they were both, in different eras of South African politics, accused of treason – by the apartheid and the post-apartheid state – and what these experiences meant for them and for each other.

Tim Wright explores a small and fascinating node of vampire culture in Johannesburg and ways in which Joburg vampires become caught up in the networks and economies of the city.

Caio Simoes De Araujo talks about the new Maputo-Katembe bridge, linking Mozambique and South Africa and what it tells us about shifting, infrastructurally mediated relations in the region, not least by Chinese interests.

Simon van Schalkwyk discusses our new nuclear age, the re-emergence of a long latent Cold War atavism, including the politics of containment and psycho-warfare. Online ‘nuke maps’ mean you can now simulate he effects of nuclear strikes anywhere in the world. He sets the location for Braamfontain, Johannesburg and sees what (would) happen.

 

And much more….

 

The WiSER Podcast Team this year is convened by Sarah Nuttall, sound editing by Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh and designs by Bronwyn Kotzen.

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 20^th 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/event/wiser-podcast

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.

Today we release the first of a two-part podcast series which focuses on the work of Botswanan artist Meleko Mokgosi. In today’s episode, Hlonipha Mokoena, Associate Professor at WISER, discusses his work. “There seems to be no better time than the present for us to have a conversation about what it means to be a black artist who paints black subjects”, says Mokoena, as she draws on her recent writing about the artist. How can we think about the politics of the intimate in Mokgosi’s work? What Southern diasporas within diasporas are revealed? What is Mokgosi’s version of black internationalism? And what are the meanings of his incorporation of images of Frederick Douglas in his paintings? All this and more is opened up in what follows. In next week’s episode, Mokoena talks to the artist himself in a fascinating interview that takes up many of the themes she introduces to us today. Meleko Mokgosi was born in 1981 in Botswana. He is currently Associate Professor in Painting/Printmaking at the Yale School of Art. He is represented in South Africa by Stevenson Gallery and in the USA by Jack Shainman Gallery. His artwork may be viewed at these websites: https://www.stevenson.info/artist/meleko-mokgosi/biography https://jackshainman.com/artists/meleko_mokgosi https://www.melekomokgosi.com The members of The WISER Podcast Team are Sarah Nuttall, Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, Tinashe Mushakavanhu, Isabel Hofmeyr and Achille Mbembe.