Forthcoming events in the Trust programme

Trust as a decision under ambiguity: Does race matter?

Wednesday, 26 March, 2025 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Dambala Kutela
& Nicky Nicholls

This paper examines the role of ambiguity attitudes in shaping trust decisions. Traditional trust games often ignore or conflate the role of risk and ambiguity, though trust decisions typically involve the latter.

Citizenship and Genocide Cards : IDs, Statelessness and Rohingya Resistance in Myanmar

Wednesday, 19 March, 2025 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Natalie
Brinham

This book, which is available open access here, draws on Rohingya oral histories and narratives about Myanmar’s genocide and ID schemes to critiqu

Trusting public? Preliminary thoughts on urban seclusion, trust and public space

Wednesday, 12 March, 2025 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Talja
Blokland

Trust in people whom we know or work with in organizational contexts has been widely discussed, and scholars have also talked a lot about trust in our governments and other institutions, although not all of them agree that one should call this trust.

Reparative histories, the welfare state, and the future of income assistance for working-age adults in South Africa

Wednesday, 5 March, 2025 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Courtney
Hallink

Applying Gurminder Bhambra’s reparative history framework, this paper examines the historical institutionalisation of income protection for working-age adults and asks how this can inform contemporary debates about welfare reform.

On ID, Solidarity and Resistance

Wednesday, 26 February, 2025 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Silvia
Masiero

Digital identity systems convert individuals into machine-readable data.

The Roles of the Ministry of Finance in the Digital Era

Wednesday, 20 November, 2024 - 11:00

Keith Breckenridge spoke to

Between Authoritarianism and Big Tech : How can journalists help to rebuild trust?

Tuesday, 19 November, 2024 - 11:00

The Wits Centre for Journalism and WISER invite you to join us as we host

ID Wars in Côte d'Ivoire

Monday, 28 October, 2024 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Richard
Banégas
& Armando_
Cutolo

Biometric Statecraft, Policing, and Fingerprint Technology in Palestine/Israel, 1920-1948

Monday, 21 October, 2024 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Michelle
Spektor

After the League of Nations designated Palestine as a British Mandate in 1920, British colonial authorities created a Fingerprint Bureau in their newly-formed Palestine Police. When Israel was established in 1948, the Israel Police acquired the Bureau’s experts, methods, and technologies.

IS CLIMATE CHANGE UNGOVERNABLE? | Paul N Edwards

Wednesday, 9 October, 2024 - 13:00

WISER and the Pro Vice-Chancellor for Climate, Sustainability and I

The Moneychanger state

Monday, 30 September, 2024 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Kevin
Donovan

Decolonization in East Africa was more than a political event: it was a step toward economic self-determination. In this innovative book, historian and anthropologist Kevin P.

Collaborations to curb involuntary indebtedness among welfare grant recipients

Monday, 16 September, 2024 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Deborah
James

This project involved a partnership between the London School of Economics (LSE), human rights NGO Black Sash, Stellenbosch University Law Clinic (SULC), and the National Finance Ombud Scheme South Africa (NFOSA - formerly the Office of the Credit Ombud).

Racialised Publics: Coloniality, Technology and Imaginaries

Monday, 9 September, 2024 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Wendy
Willems

The notion of the ‘public sphere’ remains one of the key concepts in the field of media and communications studies.

Rhodes And His Banker: Empire, Wealth And The Coming Of Union

Monday, 26 August, 2024 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Richard
Steyn

[ This is an on-line seminar; please

Trust: A question of belief

Monday, 12 August, 2024 - 16:00
Presented by: 
John Keith
Hart

[ This is an on-line seminar; please

Carrot or Stick? Linking Nigeria’s National Identity Number (NIN) coerced enrolment with Questions of a shared Nigerian Identity

Monday, 5 August, 2024 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Tunde
Okunoye

Nigeria commenced enrolment to its national identity program in 2007, and enrolment numbers as of July 2023 stands at 101.6 million.

Debt, credit and obligation in Kenya’s 2022 elections

Monday, 29 July, 2024 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Ngala Chome
& Justin Willis

Asked why they intended to vote for William Ruto in Kenya’s 2022 presidential election, many people in central Kenya had a simple answer: ‘we owe Ruto a debt’.

Witchcraft logics and the biometric citizen

Monday, 13 May, 2024 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Peter
Geschiere

I hope to explore the confrontation between on the one hand efforts of the postcolonial state to create a biometric citizen and, on the other the implications of local visions of the person as double, incomplete etc.; these local views can be summarized as ‘witchcraft’, bu

Unified Theory of Trust | Waqf and the Islamic Law of Trust

Thursday, 25 April, 2024 - 14:00

Keith Breckenridge with commentary from Ayesha Omar

The Invention of 'Kumba Age’. How did individuals' age become dynamic in Cameroon?

Monday, 15 April, 2024 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Georges
Eyenga

This article analyzes how individuals react to the age barriers established by the state for access to public service in Cameroon.

WISER | African Trust Infrastructures | Part-time Doctoral Applications

Thursday, 1 February, 2024 - 00:00

Over the last twenty years WiSER has established itself as the leading interdisciplinary research

Interdisciplinary Research Webinar on Population Registers, Ethics and Human Rights

Tuesday, 10 October, 2023 - 16:00

WISER, in collaboration with the IUSSP, IIGH and ISER, invite you to join us for a panel discussi

An Overview of Frontier Technologies for Land Tenure: How to Avoid the Hype and Focus on What Matters

Monday, 18 September, 2023 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Simon
Hull

Secure land and natural resource rights are key ingredients for rural transformation, social inclusion, and the realization of the Sustainable Development Goals.

Bargaining with the state? Black farmers’ petitions for agricultural support, amidst white farmers’ subsidies, 1920s-1970s

Monday, 11 September, 2023 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Tara
Weinberg

In the early 20th century, groups of black land buyers purchased land in the Transvaal with the intention of farming on a large scale.

A population-based estimation and assessment of persons lacking official proof of legal identity

Monday, 4 September, 2023 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Romesh
Silva

This is a hybrid seminarPlease join us in the WISER seminar room or register for the session in advance of the meeting at : 

Land, debt and trust in the making of biometric capitalism

Thursday, 24 August, 2023 - 12:30
Ataya, HUMA Interdisciplinary Seminar Series, University of Cape Town

"The girl is not consulted" : Abduction marriages and gendered traditions of violence

Monday, 21 August, 2023 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Sean
Redding

This is an on-line seminarPlease, register for the session in advance of the meeting at : 

The Land and its people : The South African ‘Land Question’ and the Post-Apartheid Political Order

Monday, 7 August, 2023 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Andries
du Toit

This is a hybrid seminar.  We will meet in the WISER seminar room and host participants on-line.  On-line participants should, please, regis

Appointment | Researcher | Trust Infrastructures

Friday, 21 July, 2023 - 00:00

WISER seeks to appoint a Researcher on a three year contract renewable

Platform economies: Beyond the North-South divide

Thursday, 8 June, 2023 - 10:00
Presented by: 
Janet
Roitman

Platform economies are depicted as the foundation for a new era of economic production. This transpires through the incorporation of digital technologies and algorithmic operations into the heart of economic and financial practices.

Center-led Fiscal Reform and the Rise of Regional Power Blocs in a Limpopo Municipality, 1980-2020

Monday, 22 May, 2023 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Joel
Pearson

This article considers the changing role of a local municipality in the political economy of the Waterberg region of Limpopo.

“Open Doors” and “Stranger Natives”: white supremacy, racialisation and governing im/mobilities in African Trusts

Monday, 15 May, 2023 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Polly
Pallister-Wilkins

This paper explores how processes of white supremacy and racialisation coalesce in governing differential im/mobilities in mid-Twentieth Century African Trusts administered by the British under the League of Nations Mandate System and later UN Trusteeship Council.

Regulatory efforts to reign in digital credit: Case study of evolving regulation in Kenya

Monday, 8 May, 2023 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Keren Weitzberg &
Radha Upadhyaya

This paper charts the rise of digital credit in Kenya. It highlights the data on evidence on the problems of digital credit, including the high cost of credit, overindebtedness, and unfair blacklisting.

“We Will Not Follow You Like Sheep”: Literacy, Officialdom, and Generational Politics in the Digital Age

Monday, 24 April, 2023 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Clovis
Bergere

This paper examines digital media contents created by young Guineans on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube which all foreground literacy as a site of generational contention and struggle.

Invitation | Building trust after the African polycrisis | People, Energy, Climate and Finance

Wednesday, 15 March, 2023 - 16:00

Can African Finance build pathways out of the African Polycrisis : Join Adam Tooze, Patrick Mweheire and Sim Tshabalala in discussion with Hlonipha Mokoena

The (un) making of electoral transparency through technology: The 2017 Kenyan presidential election controversy

Monday, 13 March, 2023 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Cecilia
Passanti
& Marie-Emmanuelle
Pommerolle

Researching Africa and the Offshore World

Monday, 6 March, 2023 - 16:00
Presented by: 
Ricardo
Soares de Oliveira

One of the key features of today's global economy is an ‘offshore world’ of financial structures, institutions and techniques designed to provide secrecy, asset protection and tax exemption.

African Trust Infrastructures : Call for Doctoral Fellowship Applications

Friday, 20 January, 2023 - 18:00

Over the last twenty years WiSER has established itself as the leading interdisciplinary research

Bhalisa 3 | Cambridge | Panels

Tuesday, 19 March, 2019 - 23:30

See the list of panels below.