Matthew Wingfield is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at Stellenbosch University, South Africa, in the SARChI Chair of Land, Environment and Sustainable Development. Matthew has conducted ethnographic research under the broader theme of social and environmental justice, specifically focusing on social movements and civil society groups working in these spaces. From focusing on resistance to gentrification and the ‘spatial apartheid’ existing in Cape Town, his work has shifted to focus on environmental concerns. His PhD dissertation focused on a small group operating in the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA), just outside of Cape Town, and its contestations around the political economy of natural resources (land, water, soil), in the context of the climate crisis. As a Post-Doctoral Fellow, he will conduct comparative research on water and the political economy of natural resources between urban and non-urban spaces. This will be located in Graaff-Reinet. He is also one of the founding partners of the Global Classroom Democracy Innovation, an international collaborative educational programme between SU and the University of Toronto. He is also a Co-director of the Cape Town Design Nerds, a newly formed non-profit affiliate of the Vancouver Design Nerds Society, working through the framework of critical pedagogy and ‘design justice’. Matthew has developed scholarship around a range of issues, from social and environmental justice to collaborative international pedagogy. Personally, he is a supporter of numerous climate justice and grassroots activist networks, such as the Climate Justice Charter Movement (CJCM).

Monographs & Edited Volumes

(Forthcoming). Social Movements in the Climate Crisis: Political ecology and the Day Zero drought in Cape Town. Bloomsbury Press. In Review.

(Forthcoming). The trade-offs and conundrums of the ‘Just Transition’ and the Shift to Green Futures: Perspectives from Southern Africa and Northern Sweden. (With S. L. Robins). Anthropology Southern Africa.

Academic Publications

Luckett, T. & Wingfield, M. M. Accepted (2025). The Contested Just Transition in the Waterberg Coalfield: Exploring Meanings of Justice and Possibilities for Habitable Futures. Anthropology Southern Africa.

Wingfield, M. M. 2024. Reparative Futurities: South African food production and the climate crisis. New Agenda: South African Journal of Social and Economic Policy. 94(1), 25-34.

Wingfield, M. M. 2024. Hydropolitical potentialities in a post-Day Zero Cape Town: “Sensemaking” and the Cape Flats Aquifer. Journal of Political Ecology, 31(1):84-97. https://doi.org/10.2458/jpe.5816.

Wingfield, M. M. 2023. Protest and Legibility: A case study of Reclaim the City (RTC). Social Dynamics

Wingfield, M. M. 2022. “Working Time” in environmental activism: Engaging “Slow Violence” in the Philippi Horticultural Area (PHA). Anthropology Southern Africa, 45(4): 219-230. https://doi.org/10.1080/23323256.2022.2141810.

Invited Talks, Conference Presentations and Panels Convened

Wingfield, M. M. 2025. Provincialising Climate Justice: Situated and multisited socio-ecological potentialities from Southern Africa. ASA UK (University of Birmingham). 8-11th April.

Wingfield, M. M. 2025. “Transformative energy regimes in South Africa: beyond the grid, between the people”. Democratisation of Energy Governance Workshop (University College London). 25-26th March.

Wingfield, M. M. 2024. “Food Futures and Crisis: Repositioning Food Sovereignty”. (World Anthropological Union Congress, Johannesburg). 12th November.

Wingfield, M. M. 2024. The Paradoxes and Trade-offs of the Just Transition. Panel convened at (World Anthropological Union, Johannesburg). 15th November.

Wingfield, M. M. 2024. “Academia meets activism: a new water justice agenda”. Panel co-convened at University of Oxford. 20th June. Panellists: Dr Catherine Fallon Grasham, Prof Farhana Sultana, Prof Lyla Mehta, Dr Matthew Wingfield, Mr Sam Taylor.

Wingfield, M. M. 2023. (Post) Colonial and Apartheid Hydropolitics. Seminar at REACH (Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment), 1st May. University of Oxford.

Wingfield, M. M. 2024. “Invisible tethers: underground water and comparative hydropolitics in South Africa’s Cape region”. Seminar at African Studies Seminar Series, St Anthony’s College, 1st May. University of Oxford.

Popular Media Publications

Wingfield, M. M. 2023. Cape Town’s ‘Day Zero’ threat concentrated minds: an activist group used the moment to secure environmental victories. The Conversation, 9th February. [Online]. https://theconversation.com/cape-towns-day-zero-threat-concentrated-minds-an-activist-group-used-the-moment-to-secure-environmental-victories-198324

Wingfield, M.M. 2022. To higher education institutions: your students are potential changemakers in climate crisis action. Daily Maverick, 24^th [Online]. https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2022-07-24-get-your-students-involved-in-climate-crisis-action-higher-education-institutions/

Wingfield, M.M. & David, T.H. 2021. The Challenges and Opportunities of developing student-led food gardens: A Case of the SU Food Garden. SAFSC periodical, https://www.safsc.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/SAFSC-Newsletter21.pdf

Sandan, A. & Wingfield, M.M. 2021. Learning lessons: UCT Online High School is something of a curate’s egg. Daily Maverick, 30^th [Online]. Available: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-07-29-learning-lessons-uct-online-high-school-is-something-of-a-curates-egg/amp/

Herold, B., Hansen, C.B.N., De Barros, M. & Wingfield, M.M. 2020. Reclaim the City’s Cape Town occupations are opportunities, not threats. Daily Maverick, 17^th [Online.]. Available: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-11-17-reclaim-the-citys-cape-town-occupations-are-opportunities-not-threats/