A Conversation between Prof Tamara Shefer and Dr Akuch Kuol Anyieth

In this conversation between Prof Tamara Shefer and Dr Akuch Kuol Anyieth. Prof Shefer and Dr Anyieth will reflect on their work on gender-based violence (GBV), examine the intersections between global feminist debates, African lived realities, and decolonial feminist politics. Situating GBV within broader histories of colonialism, displacement, and global inequalities, this dialogue asks: How do African feminist scholars and activists reframe GBV beyond dominant Western discourses? What forms of knowledge, practice, and activism emerge when GBV is analysed through African and decolonial feminist lenses? The conversation will consider the role of both legal and non-legal interventions, transnational solidarity, and youth-led activism in transforming gender relations. By weaving together scholarship and lived experience, the conversation aims to expand the horizon of what justice, healing, and feminist solidarity can mean in Africa and global contexts.

Professor Tamara Shefer

Tamara Shefer is Senior Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town. Her scholarship has Her scholarship has foregrounded the study of gender and sexualities within postcolonial, decolonial, transnational feminist and critical masculinities thinking, with particular emphasis on young people. She is currently engaged with re-conceptualising academic knowledge with emphasis on embodied, affective, feminist, decolonial pedagogies and research, including collaborations across art and activism and thinking with oceans and water. Her most recent books include: A feminist critique of sexuality education for gender justice in South African contexts (co-authored with S. Ngabaza, 2023, CSA&G Pretoria University); Knowledge, Power and Young Sexualities: A Transnational Feminist Engagement (co-authoured with J. Hearn, 2022, Routledge); and the Routledge International Handbook of Masculinity Studies (co-edited with L. Gottzén & U. Mellström, 2020). She is also co-editor (with V. Bozalek & N. Romano) on the recently published volume Hydrofeminist thinking with ocean/s: Political and scholarly possibilities (Routledge, 2024).

Dr Akuch Kuol Anyieth

Dr Akuch Kuol Anyieth is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ), Stellenbosch University. Her research focuses on family and gender-based violence in African Australian communities, exploring the intersections between customary and formal legal frameworks, and advancing decolonial legal interventions in cases of family violence. Her current project examines gender-based and inter-communal violence in South Sudan. Dr Anyieth’s scholarship and advocacy have been recognised through numerous awards, including the La Trobe University Distinguished Alumni Award (2024) in Australia and the Victorian Multicultural Commission Excellence in Justice Award (2022).

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