Minga Mbweck Kongo

Minga Kongo is an anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at HUMA with research interests in water sociality, mobility, urbanism, illness and climate change. Minga's thesis in social anthropology examines water, sociality and the challenge of navigating dignified livelihoods in Khayelitsha, a Cape Town settlement often characterised by limited access to, and the uncertain quality of, water. He investigates the subjectivities created by unequal municipal water distribution and how Khayelitsha residents access and harness water to meet their everyday needs, sustain life and build socio-cultural personhood. He further explores how residents navigate and seek to reconcile the possible contradictions in the uneven distribution of water in Khayelitsha and its surroundings, as well as in other places that are generally relatively well-provisioned. His study shows the multiple relations with and complexities of water. He employs an anthropological perspective using ethnography to show these complexities. Minga has been a fellow of the Mastercard Foundation Scholars Program for undergraduate studies at UCT. He has taught and served as a research assistant for several projects at UCT; he is also a curator at UCT Centre for African Studies and a member of the Citizens in Motion bilateral cooperation project between South African and Japanese scholars. He has worked widely in emergency medical services, architecture, construction, arts and community development sectors.