Biography

Ms. Siphosethu Baleni is a second-year masters student in Philosophy at Stellenbosch University through AVReQ. She completed a BA in Philosophy and Psychology, followed by an Honours in Philosophy at the University of Fort Hare. Her research interests include black existentialism and phenomenology. She is currently the grant holder of a masters scholarship through AVReQ which is funded by FirstRand.

Current research

Siphosethu Baleni is a second-year MA student in the philosophy department. Her research focuses on black intersubjective violence in post-colonial South Africa. Specifically, she seeks to investigate, using a phenomenological lens, the connection between South Africa’s history of anti-blackness in the form of apartheid and the prevalence of black-on-black violence in today’s post-colonial South Africa. In this regard, her study seeks to understand how a racialized black subject, considering its internalization of blackness, understands its relation to itself and other black subjects in a context of violent anti-black ontology that is historical and contingent. She believes that this understanding can uncover ways that often remain dormant in how we perceive ourselves and, therefore, contribute to the larger philosophical discourses aimed at emancipating black people’s perception of themselves and their intersubjective modes of relationality.

Name of Supervisors: Prof Louise du Toit & Dr Veeran Naicker

Email: 26639203@sun.ac.za | Tel: +27 (21) 808 4047