Biography

Ms Siphosethu Baleni is a master’s student in the Philosophy department at Stellenbosch University, supported by a scholarship from AVReQ, funded by FirstRand. She completed a BA in Philosophy and Psychology and an Honours in Philosophy at the University of Fort Hare. Her research interests include Critical Race thought, with a particular focus on Critical Existential Phenomenology.

Current Research Project

Ms Baleni’s current research focuses on Black intersubjective violence in post-colonial South Africa. Using a Critical Phenomenological lens, she seeks to explore the connection between South Africa’s violent history of anti-Blackness—manifesting in slavery, colonialism, and apartheid—and the prevalence of Black-on-Black violence today. In this regard, her study investigates how the racialized Black subject, shaped by these histories, understands itself and its relation to other Black subjects within a socio-political reality still structured by violent anti-Black ontology. She believes that this understanding can reveal ways of perceiving ourselves and each other that often remain dormant. Engaging with Frantz Fanon’s insights on colonial violence and racialized subjectivity alongside Pumla Dineo Gqola’s work on slavery’s afterlives, she hopes to contribute to broader philosophical discourses on Black self-perception and intersubjective relationality. Ultimately, her study aims to open up ways of thinking that resist the inherited structures of violence and offer possibilities for reimagining Black existence beyond them.

Supervisors: Dr Veeran Naicker & Prof Louise du Toit

Email: 26639203@sun.ac.za