Keynote

From Curiosity to Contribution: Finding Your Place in Research

Short Bio

Dr Neil Barnard is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Industrial Psychology and Human Resource Management at the North-West University and Research Programme Leader of the Human Flourishing in Institutions programme within the Optentia Research Unit. He is a registered Industrial Psychologist whose research focuses on sustainable employability, mattering at work, and flourishing at work from a Capability Approach perspective. His work seeks to understand how people can thrive at work and how research can be used to address real-world challenges in organisations and society. Dr Barnard supervises postgraduate students, teaches research methodology, and publishes in the fields of industrial and organisational psychology. He is passionate about fostering curiosity and supporting emerging researchers in conducting meaningful research that contributes to individuals, organisations, and society.

Abstract

Research is often viewed as a means of completing a qualification, yet it also provides a way of asking meaningful questions, generating knowledge, and contributing to society. This keynote explores how curiosity has challenged long-held assumptions and led to important discoveries across fields such as sport, medicine, and psychology. It will discuss the role of research as a process of inquiry and scholarly conversation, while introducing key considerations for getting started with a research project, including asking meaningful questions, understanding one’s audience, and recognising the researcher's role in contributing to knowledge. The keynote will conclude by reflecting on the importance of purpose and a growth mindset in navigating the research journey and sustaining engagement.

Keynote:

Prof Anthonie Van Nieuwkerk – “The democratic system in South Africa: is it fit for purpose?”

The presentation will address four aspects of democracy:  First, an exploration of democracy as a political and social construct anchored on three ideas.  These are: democracy as a value, a process, and a practice.   Second, an exploration of the competing understandings of democracy: electoral, liberal pseudo and development democracies. Third, a brief examination of the democracy-inequality paradox: how much inequality (and for how long) can a democracy tolerate before its foundations erode?  Fourth, how is this relevant to South Africa whether democratic consolidation can be achieved. 

Keynote: Weaponised Identity, Demonised Diversity 

Nicky Falkof is a Professor of Media Studies at Wits. She currently holds the NRF-DST SARChI Chair in Critical Diversity Studies and is the Director of the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies. Her books include The Devil Made Me Do It: Understanding Occult Crime in South Africa, Worrier State: Risk, Anxiety and Moral Panic in South Africa and Anxious Joburg: The Inner Lives of a Global South City. 

Abstract:

Identity and diversity seem, at first glance, to be two sides of the same coin. After all, diversity and difference are fundamentally about identity: they are created by our social positioning and self-making in relation to commonly recognised features like race, gender, sexuality and ability. Nonetheless, the politics of identity often treat diversity as a threat rather than a source of strength, innovation and creativity. In this anxious mode of thought, identitarian homogeneity becomes an aspirational state: the world is seen as safer and more explicable when ‘we’ are all the same. In this lecture I will consider some of the broader manifestations and consequences of this anxious worldview. I will show how identity is weaponised, in some instances violently, to demonise and abject diversity, often to the benefit of elite actors. I will discuss three contemporary case studies: anti-African xenophobia in South Africa, the global attack on transgender rights and the myth of white genocide. In considering how identity is used as a weapon to dismiss both the social value of diversity and the individual humanity of scapegoated people, I will argue that a deep understanding of and commitment to diversity requires an intersectional feminist perspective that places the personal within the political.

Mfundo Mandla Masuku is an Associate Professor of Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. He serves extensively on college and university committees. He specialises in the intersection of African philosophy and governance. Part of his substantive research explores the Ubuntu philosophy and its application in contemporary community-driven projects to provide essential services. In the process, critically challenging Western paradigms with African indigenous knowledge systems. Masuku also contributes to the South African government’s strategic agenda to build a developmental state through research in partnership with public institutions.

Prof Blessed “Bee”Nhlanganiso Ngwenya is an Associate Professor and Director of the Optentia Research Unit at North-West University, where he leads work at the intersection of inclusion, decolonial praxis, human flourishing and institutional transformation. He holds a DPhil in Socio-Legal Studies from the University of Oxford, and his scholarship is grounded in questions of power, representation, justice and the rehumanisation of those historically marginalised by colonial and modern systems. His work spans decolonial theory, diversity and inclusion, media representation, the capability approach, higher education transformation and qualitative methodologies. He is the author of Media Power and Hegemony in South Africa: The Myth of Independence and has published widely on coloniality, identity, social justice and public discourse. As part of his academic citizenship, he serves as Associate Editor of the International Journal of Qualitative Methods, contributing to the advancement of rigorous, inclusive and globally engaged qualitative scholarship.In addition to his academic work, Prof Ngwenya is deeply involved in community-engaged scholarship, including projects that address dignity, educational inequality and the lived realities of vulnerable communities. At the heart of his work is a commitment to moving diversity beyond representation alone, towards structural change, epistemic justice and the creation of institutions where people are not merely included, but recognised, valued and enabled to flourish.

I have 40 years combined experience in the public, corporate, information technology, consulting, and academic sectors.  I started my professional career at Price Waterhouse and progressed to Knowledge Management and Systems Architecture and Design at the De Beers Diamond Exploration Archive, business and information technology and knowledge, and project management consulting at Rubico and Information and Knowledge Management in the academic sector and more specifically digital archiving of indigenous heritage preservation materials across all mediums (art, manuscripts, music, rocks, etc.).

I have a unique skills set, developed from the international liaison experience I gained at Price Waterhouse combined with the IT and digital archiving systems I built for De Beers, which were both determining factors that led to my expertise in digital archiving of heritage preservation collections, today. Combine that with the project management experience gained during my 7-year sojourn in the IT world and sales experience, which equipped me with the necessary negotiation skills.

Biography

Dr. Bryan Carter is Professor of Africana Studies and Director of the Center for Digital Humanities at the University of Arizona, where he oversees one of the only university-based volumetric capture stages in the American Southwest. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri-Columbia, and his work sits at the intersection of 20th-century African American literature, the Harlem Renaissance, Afrofuturism, and digital humanities.

He is best known for Virtual Harlem, a long-running immersive reconstruction of 1920s Jazz Age Harlem and one of the earliest sustained virtual reality projects in the humanities. At the Center for Digital Humanities, eighteen student developers from fields ranging from computer science to film, television, and media collaborate with him on projects in AR, VR, volumetric capture, 360 videography, and digital storytelling that treat Black cultural memory as something to be walked through and experienced rather than only read.

Dr. Carter is the author of two books that anchor his scholarly contributions to the field. His first, Digital Humanities: Current Perspective, Practices, and Research (Emerald Group Publishing, 2013), appeared as Volume 7 of the Cutting-Edge Technologies in Higher Education series (ISBN 978-1-78190-688-0). His second, Afrofuturism and Digital Humanities: Show Me and I Will Engage Differently (Routledge, 2022), appeared in the Routledge Research in Digital Humanities series (ISBN 9781138603158) and introduces the field of Digital Africana Studies through detailed case studies of pedagogical practice. He recently served as Principal Investigator on a multi-million-dollar U.S. Department of Commerce broadband initiative, which concluded in January 2026, expanding internet access to underserved communities around the University of Arizona and its micro-campus sites.

Dr Lizabé Lambrechts is a South African heritage practitioner, archivist, and musicologist. She is Executive Director of Nuuseum, a non-profit organisation dedicated to preserving and providing access to South Africa’s cultural heritage through large-scale digitisation, digital preservation, and online access initiatives. She also serves as an Extraordinary Associate Professor at the Africa Open Institute, where her work focuses on archives, memory, heritage, and digital humanities. Lambrechts previously led the Hidden Years Music Archive Project and served as Director of Archives at Africa Open. Her research and public-facing projects explore how archives can foster new forms of engagement, access, and knowledge production. She is currently the South African Research Director of Decay Without Mourning: Future Thinking Heritage Practices, an international research collaboration funded by the Riksbankens Jubileumsfond.

Abstract

Democracy at a crossroads-remembering the past to chart the future

Naledi Modise (PhD)

Bio 

Naledi is a Lecturer of Political Science at the NWU-Mafikeng Campus. She holds a PhD Political Science from the University of Pretoria. Furthermore, she is a Political Analyst who regularly provides commentary on local politics in the country. Naledi’s research interests are on democracy, voter behaviour and elections in South Africa. 

Dr Bathromeu Mavhura is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Geopolitical Security and Strategy (CGSS). He holds an MA and PhD in Political Science from Stellenbosch University. His research focuses on armed conflicts in Africa, global security challenges, and the involvement of external actors in contemporary conflicts.
Title: The Fracturing of Geopolitical System: Causes and Effects
The fracturing of the post–Cold War multilateral order reflects resurgent great-power competition, transactional diplomacy, and deepening economic dependencies that weaken international institutions and contest global norms. Drawing on realism and dependency perspectives, this paper argues that rivalry among the United States, China, and Russia accelerates the erosion of multilateral capacity, most visibly in the UN Security Council, by substituting ad hoc coalitions and bilateral deals for collective action. Empirically, the study employs comparative case analysis of the Russia–Ukraine war, US–Israel–Iran tensions, and African sites of contestation (the Democratic Republic of Congo’s critical-minerals politics and Russian private military activity in the Sahel), supported by policy documents and elite interviews. Findings show that transactional partnerships (infrastructure-for-influence, security-for-resources) intensify African states’ strategic dilemmas, deepen economic dependency, and constrain regional responses. This raises critical questions: Can the fracturing of the post-Cold War multilateral order create opportunities for economic, diplomatic, and security cooperation in Africa? How do transactionalism and declining multilateralism influence Africa’s strategic choice? The paper concludes that while geopolitical fracturing raises risks, Africa can mitigate harms through strengthened regional governance, diversified partnerships, and improved resource transparency, measures that preserve agency amid a more fragmented international system.