Upcoming Events
Past Events

THE SOCIAL MOVEMENTS LAB
SWOP director, Dr Prishani Naidoo participated in the Social Movements Lab hosted at Duke University’s Franklin Centre for the Humanities in Durham, United States.
The main speaker was Idris Robinson who reflected on his presentation ‘The George Floyd Rebellions and the Struggle for Black Lives’.
View the video of Robinson's presentation.
Join the discussion
Thursday 8 October
12pm EST (6pm in South Africa)
SOMA Summer | Conversations at a distance
Can we think social justice again?
SWOP collaborated with SOMA in Mexico on an online programme of conversations between artists, curators, researchers, academics and activists, that grew out of a Summer School on Social Justice that would have taken place in Mexico in October 2020, but for the covid-19 pandemic. Each conversation was livestreamed and the video recordings, subtitled in English when the medium was Spanish, are listed here.

20 MAR | 03 APR | 08 MAY 2020
SWOP Breakfast Seminar Series - First Semester 2020
Presenting new research by SWOP
Please note that breakfast will be served from 7h30, the presentations will begin at 8h00 for 20 - 25 minutes, followed by a discussion.
20 MARCH | 08h00 - 09h30: Is any job better than no job? A view from ‘unemployed’ youth in urban South Africa
Presenter: Hannah Dawson
03 APRIL | CANCELLED BY COVID-19 “We fought for inkululeko not democracy”: Re-thinking democracy and the
continued struggle for inkululeko
Presenter: Hlengiwe Ndlovu
08 MAY | CANCELLED BY COVID-19: "Hunter being hunted": Politics, extraction and bloodsucker violence in rural Malawi
Presenter: Daniel Nkhata
VENUE:
Hoymeyr House, between Jubilee Hall & International House, Wits University
East Campus, Braamfontein (Parking available)

02 MARCH 2020
Public Seminar Co-hosted by ILRIG
An alternative for a world in crisis: The Rojava Revolution, Kurdish Freedom Movement and prospects for South Africa's incomplete liberation.
Speakers: Dale McKinley (ILRIG), Rohash Shexo and Ercan Ayboga
TIME: 17h30 - 19h30
VENUE: Graduate Studies Seminar Room, South-West Engineering Building, Wits East Campus

21 FEBRUARY 2020
SWOP Breakfast Seminar Series - First Semester 2020
Presenting new research by SWOP
Please note that breakfast will be served from 7h30, the presentations will begin at 8h00 for 20 - 25 minutes, followed by a discussion.
21 FEBRUARY | 08h00 - 09h30: Discussion and Launch of 'Bonds of Justice: The Struggle for Oukasie'
Speakers: Kally Forrest, Tshidi Mangoathe, Jacob Moatshe, Gille de Vlieg
VENUE:
Hoymeyr House, between Jubilee Hall & International House, Wits University
East Campus, Braamfontein (Parking available)
RSVP:
email: gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za | call: 011 717 4460

20 FEBRUARY 2020
Documentary and Talk on the Brazilian Crisis: The Edge of Democracy.
Screening of selected parts of the documentary and a talk with Dr Francisco Macedo (Federal Institute, Brazil). The full documentary is available on Netflix
TIME: 17h30
VENUE: Apollonia Theatre, 2nd Floor, Wits School of Arts Building, Braamfontien Campus.

31 OCTOBER 2019
Inside the Brazilian State: Activism Versus the Rising Right
with Prof Rebecca Abers
Join Jospeh Mujere as we launch his new book. A new history of the Basotho migrants in Zimbabwe, that illuminates identity politics, African agency and the complexities of social integration in the colonial period.
TIME: 13h00
VENUE:
Graduate Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building, East Campus, Wits
RSVP:
email: gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za call: 011 717 4460

09 OCTOBER 2019
Book Launch: Land, Migration & Belonging: A history of the Basotho in Southern Rhodesia c1890-1960s by Joseph Mujere
Join Jospeh Mujere as we launch his new book. A new history of the Basotho migrants in Zimbabwe, that illuminates identity politics, African agency and the complexities of social integration in the colonial period.
TIME: 18h00 - 20h00
VENUE:
Graduate Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building, East Campus, Wits
RSVP:
email: gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za call: 011 717 4460
Second Semester 2019

27 AUGUST 2019
Book Launch: Retail Worker Politics, Race and Consumption in South Africa: Shelved in the Service Economy by Bridget Kenny
In conversation with author Bridget Kenny and Mbuso Nkosi (Editor: SA Labour Bulletin) as well as Gillian Hart (Professor UC-Berkeley and Wits University).
TIME: 18h00
VENUE:
Roving Bantu Kitchen
RSVP:
email: gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za call: 011 717 4460
Second Semester 2019

31 JULY 2019
#NoMeCansare: Aesthetics and politics in Mexico 2012-2018. An exhibition by curator Dr Helena Chavez
Join #NoMeCansare [I will not get tired] an exhibition exploring art and social mobilizatioon that expresses and shapes preset-day demands in Mexico where violence overwhelms and surpasses the government, gives rise to a shapeless and hard-to-decipher machine of war.
TIME: 18h00
VENUE:
Wits Fine Art postgraduate project space, 7th floor, University Corner
RSVP:
email: gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za call: 011 717 4460
Second Semester 2019

03 JUNE 2019
What do the recent elections mean for South African society today?
Join us for a discussion on the 2019 National General Elections as part of our Alternatives to Capitalism Seminar Series.
TIME: 13h00
VENUE:
Graduate Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building, East Campus, Wits
RSVP:
email: gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za call: 011 717 4460

13 FEBRUARY 2019
Decolonizing the University: Ideas from the Continent. With the Hoda Elsadda and Sabatho Nyamsenda. Chaired by Noor Nieftagodien and Karl von Holdt
In this seminar we hope to refresh the South African debates about decolonising the University with the thoughts, dilemmas and experiences of activists from countries that have been independent for far longer than we have, and which have a rich experience of anticolonial and decolonising strategies and histories. Thus we begin to build a Pan-African sense of decolonisation. Professor Hoda Elsadda is a co-founder and currently Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Women and Memory Forum. She is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Cairo University, a feminist and an activist for women’s rights. Sabatho Nyamsenda is a lecturer at Dar es Salaam University, and a social activist in Jukwaa La Wajamaa – the Tanzanian Socialist Forum which links with community groups, trade unions and student movements.
TIME: 13h00 - 14h30
VENUE:
Graduate Seminar Room, South West Engineering Building, East Campus, Wits
RSVP:
email: gugulethu.mabena1@wits.ac.za call: 011 717 4460