WISER Seminar Papers

During the first semester of 2025, WISER will host two seminar series : Plant Lives and the Trust Seminar. More information about the Plant Lives series is available on this page.

The Trust series is listed below.

The seminar takes place every Wednesday during the teaching term at 4:00pm SA time, unless we advertise otherwise. Similarly, most of the sessions will be hosted on Zoom. (For the Zoom link, please subscribe to the notices here. Participants should please note that they are required to read the paper prior to the event.


WISER, and its predecessor institutions the Institute for Advanced Study and the African Studies Institute, have hosted similar seminars that date back to the late 1960s. The archive of those events is also available on the WISER web site at http://wiser.wits.ac.za.
Date Presented by Title
Tuesday, 11 February, 2025 - 16:00
  • Luke
  • de Noronha
Putting Race in its Place
Wednesday, 26 February, 2025 - 16:00
  • Silvia
  • Masiero
On ID, Solidarity and Resistance
Wednesday, 5 March, 2025 - 16:00
  • Courtney
  • Hallink
Reparative histories, the welfare state, and the future of income assistance for working-age adults in South Africa
Wednesday, 12 March, 2025 - 16:00
  • Talja
  • Blokland
Trusting public? Preliminary thoughts on urban seclusion, trust and public space
Wednesday, 19 March, 2025 - 16:00
  • Natalie
  • Brinham
Citizenship and Genocide Cards : IDs, Statelessness and Rohingya Resistance in Myanmar
Wednesday, 26 March, 2025 - 16:00
  • Dambala Kutela
  • & Nicky Nicholls
Trust as a decision under ambiguity: Does race matter?
Wednesday, 9 April, 2025 - 12:30
  • Sophie
  • Chevalier
LUNCH TIME SEMINAR | Purchasing power as a promise : Anthropological views on « purchasing power »
Wednesday, 16 April, 2025 - 16:00
  • Keith
  • Breckenridge
Maitland and the unification of the theory of trust
Wednesday, 23 April, 2025 - 16:00
  • Bidisha
  • Chaudhuri
The DPI Approach: Infrastructuring Indian vision of Development
Wednesday, 30 April, 2025 - 16:00
  • Pariroo
  • Rattan
Problematizing Privacy and Surveillance from the Streets of Delhi
Wednesday, 7 May, 2025 - 16:00
  • Zehra
  • Hashmi
Paper Kinship: Constructing Individual Identity in Cold War Pakistan
Wednesday, 21 May, 2025 - 16:00
  • Luke
  • de Noronha
Digital identification in Jamaica