Biography

Dr Marietjie Oelofsen is Programme Manager of the Mellon Foundations’ Ubuntu Dialogues at the Stellenbosch Museum. She has been a post-doctoral fellow affiliated with Historical Trauma and Transformation Studies. Her research focus is on how and where South Africans talk about political trauma across racial and generational divides, and the possibilities that exist for healing or recovery through mediating diverse experiences in the public sphere. In 2017, Oelofsen received a PhD from Rhodes University for her thesis, Hearing the citizens: Inequality, access to journalists and the prospects for inclusively mediated spaces of political deliberation in South Africa. This followed an MPhil (cum laude) at the University of Stellenbosch in which she proposed a re-conceptualisation of the way in which journalists consider their professional role in order to raise possibilities for more inclusive public and political conversations. Marietjie worked as a journalist in South Africa for 11 years, and as a development communication specialist in the HIV /AIDS sector on the African continent for almost two decades.’

Email: hmoelofsen@sun.ac.za | Tel: +27 21 808 4047