The African Gender Institute (AGI) invites you to a seminar titled: 'Home sweet home? Experiences of two Zimbabwean researchers of going back home to do research in a time of political and economic volatility' by Kezia Batisai and Grasian Mkodzongi.

Kezia Batisai recently graduated from the University of Cape Town with a PhD in Gender Studies. Her doctoral research draws on narratives of rurally-based Zimbabwean women, over the age of 65, in order to interrogate notions about gender and sexual agency and to remap the hegemonic political narrative of Zimbabwean liberation. The PhD is theoretically grounded in debates on the interconnections between sexualities, gender and nationalisms. Currently, her research interrogates the political nature of identity construction as well as the politics of living through gendered bodies in post-colonial Africa.

Grasian Mkodzongi is currently an A.C. Jordan Post-doctoral Fellow at the Centre for African Studies at UCT. Grasian obtained his PhD from the University of Edinburgh (United Kingdom). His doctoral thesis which was entitled ‘Fast Tracking land Reform and Rural Livelihoods in Mashonaland West Province of Zimbabwe’ focused on the dynamics of rural livelihoods after Zimbabwe’s Fast Track land Reform Program (FTLRP). Grasian is an Ecologist with a background in managing rural livelihoods improvement projects particularly in Southern Africa. His current research focuses on the link between agrarian reform and rural livelihoods security.

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