Khosi Kubeka: Building support networks as a black womxn in transnational educational spaces

HUMA Doctoral Seminar Series

Speaker: Khosi Kubeka (University of Cape Town, South Africa)

In this talk, I will briefly outline my experience as black African womxn doctoral student navigating a predominantly white mainstream university in the United States. The focus is on how I proactively sought and created a network of support with fellow black students and faculty members from Africa and the Diaspora. I will also share my experience of transitioning back to an African university and the paradox of navigating this space as a black African womxn scholar as a minority, and how I use the tools learned from my experience in the US to intentionally identify, empower and work with black African womxn doctoral students as they navigate this very slowly transforming university space.

About the speaker: Dr Khosi Kubeka is a senior lecturer in the Department of Social Work and Social Development at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She teaches Research Methodology to the Bachelor of Social Work students and the Honours in Social Development specialisations. She has over the years coordinated research projects for the Honours in Clinical Social Work and Social Development programmes. Her areas of research interest and expertise are in youth development, with a special focus on youth participation and inclusion in community development. She is currently working on a book project that aims to systematically unpack and examine the insidious ways in which are experienced as exclusionary by black youth in contemporary South Africa. Particularly how the structural design and systemic processes embedded in these institutions make them unwitting carriers of social exclusion. As a graduate student at the Ohio State University, United States, she worked as a Graduate Research Associate in two capacities – as a Research Assistant in the School of Public Health in the Columbus Congregations for Healthy Youth (CoChy) project, a longitudinal study on religiosity and youth developmental well-being, and as a research assistant to Professor Korie Edwards from the Sociology Department. Dr Khosi Kubeka was awarded the AW Postdoctoral Fellowship to work with Professor Viviene Taylor at the UCT Department of Social Work and Social Development. From 2011 to 2013, she worked as a Junior Research Fellow in the department. As a senior lecturer, one of her key roles is to develop and strengthen the research programme.

Convenor: Ayanda Manqoyi, HUMA Programme Administrator: Postgraduate Development. See profile