In this episode, Rabia Abba Omar is in conversation with Prof zethu Matebeni about her research on African queer studies, professional trajectory, and scholarly, personal and political journey. Prof Matebeni reflected on her own journey as a student, early days as an academic and how she got to where she is now. Furthermore, Prof Matebeni also discussed her struggles with mental health and the new kind of power struggles she encountered within the academia and her social life.
Zintombizethu (zethu) Matebeni is a sociologist, activist and writer whose research focuses on the development of African Queer Studies. She has worked at different universities in South Africa and the United States of America and has been part of decolonizing interventions, including #RhodesMustFall and the Black Academic Caucus at the University of Cape Town. zethu has edited and co-edited various volumes on African LGBTQI life, including Reclaiming African: queer perspectives on sexual and gender identities (Modjaji, 2014); Queer in Africa: LGBTQI Identities, Citizenship and Activism (Routledge, 2018); and Beyond the Mountain: queer life in ‘Africa’s gay capital’ (UNISA Press, 2021). zethu holds the National Research Foundation South Africa Research Chair in Sexualities, Genders and Queer Studies at the University of Fort Hare.
Rabia Abba Omar is a researcher and curator working towards a MA in Visual Studies from Stellenbosch University’s Visual Arts Department. She likes to think with/of the ocean, memory, archives, and is currently exploring the body as an archive of violence. She is a MA Fellow of Imagining Futures of Un/Archived Pasts project (Exeter University) and based at AVReQ. She holds a MA in Heritage Studies from the University of the Witwatersrand, where she was part of the Oceanic Humanities of the Global South and is an alumni of the UnSchool of Disruptive Design’s Emerging Leaders Fellowship.