NEWS

Celebrating our 2026 graduates

We celebrate four outstanding MA students whose research journeys have led them not only to graduation but also to providing meaningful insights into some of South Africa’s most pressing social and environmental challenges.

VIEW POST

Green Hydrogen South–South Dialogue from Below Windhoek, Namibia | 3 March 2026

Stephanie Borchardt attended and presented at the Green Hydrogen South–South Dialogue from Below in Windhoek, Namibia.

VIEW POST

Towards an Integrated Drylands Research Agenda: Insights from the 2026 Stellenbosch Workshop

A collaborative Drylands Workshop convened researchers and institutional partners to reflect on the growing need for genuinely interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary research that speaks to South Africa’s drylands.

VIEW POST

Where has all the water gone? Reflections on a visit to the Groot Karoo drylands

In a recent article published in the "Daily Maverick," Professor Steven Robins provides a sobering reflection on the deteriorating water crisis in the Groot Karoo.

VIEW POST

Call for Papers: “Infrastructure as Matter and Theory” (Special Issue)

Call for Papers: Abstracts due Friday 30 January 2026.

VIEW POST

Call for Papers: “Energy, Communication, Environment: Nature and Culture in Times of Socio-Ecological Crisis”

New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy (4th Quarter issue, December 2026).

VIEW POST

Extractive legacies, local struggles, and the pursuit of social justice: Green energy development in South Africa’s semi-arid Northern Cape

Please see the latest publication by our postdoctoral fellow, Dr Stephanie Borchardt.

VIEW POST

From Terra Nullius to Telescope: Whose Map is the Karoo?

The Karoo has always been more than a place. It is a map that has been sketched, erased, and redrawn across centuries, each set of lines telling us less about the land itself and more about who claimed the authority to chart it—an op-ed by Hannah Hall.

VIEW POST

Feedback from AsnA 2025 Conference

The Cosmopolitan Karoo group convened  a double panel titled 'Entangled Ecologies and Contradictory Trajectories of Green Energy, Conservation, Livelihoods, and Labour in the Karoo and Beyond' at the Anthropology Southern Africa (ASnA) Conference at Rhodes University in Makhanda from 20–22 August 2025.

VIEW POST

Dr Stephanie Borchardt’s Reflections on ECAS 2025

I recently had the opportunity to convene a panel at the 10th European Conference on African Studies (ECAS), held from June 25–28, 2025, at Charles University in Prague.

VIEW POST