AVReQ is pleased to be hosting Professor Azrini Wahidin from the University of Warwick’s Department of Sociology as a Visiting Professor. As a Centre established to explore transformative research approaches and for interdisciplinary dialogue among faculty, postgraduate students, postdoctoral fellows and the public, we are privileged to have this opportunity to continue our collaboration with Professor Wahidin to develop joint research activities that will benefit AVReQ faculty and students. Professor Wahidin’s long-standing collaboration with AVReQ is especially important for the broader community of Stellenbosch University (SU) after the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding [Strengthening Warwick’s links to southern Africa.] between SU and the University of Warwick.

Professor Azrini Wahidin is the author of 13 co-edited books, 3 monographs and numerous articles. The book titled Ex-Combatant’s’ Voices: Transitioning from War to Peace in Northern, Ireland, South Africa and Sri Lanka (2022), which she co-edited with Professor John Brewer, Extraordinary Professor affiliated with AVReQ, draws on her previous book Ex-combatants, Gender and the Peace Process in Northern Ireland- Women, the Prison Experience and Political Protest.

During her stay at AVReQ, she will be completing her latest book, Under Siege: The Role of Women in Liberation Movements Under the Apartheid Regime and the Transition to Peace. The book serves to address the gap in the literature to not only understand the sustained engagement of women’s combatant roles in the liberation struggle but also to account for the ways in which female ex-combatants experience encounters with state forces and state violence. The book examines women’s experiences of political protest and the role they played as women in configuring the pathway to peace for a new South Africa.

Professor Wahidin will be giving masterclasses and participating in capacity building programmes offered by AVReQ for students. She is scheduled to deliver a public lecture in the Vice Chancellor’s Forum Lectures series.