Doing Research from a South African Perspective
Episode Description
In this episode of Talking about Methods, Professor Linda Mulcahy talks to Prof Mandla J. Radebe (University of Johannesburg) about doing research in the South African context. He talks about using oral history as a primary research method to understand different dimensions of lived experience when studying the historiography of South Africa. He explains how methodologies from the Global North are often inefficient to be directly applied in the South African context and that they have to be put in conversation with local and indigenous knowledge systems and concepts of coloniality.
Readings recommended by Prof Mandla J. Radebe
Carter, G. M., & Karis, T. (2013). From Protest to Challenge, Vol. 1: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882-1964: Protest and Hope, 1882-1934. Hoover Press.
Gerhart, G. M., & Glaser, C. (2010). From Protest to Challenge: A Documentary History of African Politics in South Africa, 1882-1990. Challenge and Victory, 1980-1990 (Vol. 6). Indiana University Press.
About the Speaker
Mandla J. Radebe
Mandla J. Radebe is an Associate Professor in the Department of Strategic Communication and the Director of the Centre for Data and Digital Communications in the School of Communication at the University of Johannesburg. His research interest includes Critical Political Economy of Communication, Digital Capitalism and the Network Society and the National Question and Nation Formation. He is an award-winning author, recognised for his book “The Lost Prince of the ANC: The Life and Times of Jabulani Nobleman ‘Mzala’ Nxumalo 1955-1991” (Jacana Media), which won the Creative Non-Fiction Literary Award of the 2023 South African Literary Awards (SALA).