The virtual conference provided postgraduate students from across the globe the opportunity to interact, share research findings and collaborate.  Postgraduate Research Students from African studies, anthropology, politics, philosophy, history and cultural or heritage studies submitted proposals on broadly conceptualized sub-themes:

• Legacies of colonialism and violence
• Inequalities and Marginalisation
• Reconstruction and Development
• Natural Resource Management
• Peace and Nation-Building
• Communication and Representation
• Truth and Truthfulness

View Conference Programme Outline here_

Shahid Vawda graduated from the universities of Durban-Westville (BA), Queen's University Belfast (MA) and KwaZulu-Natal (PhD). Before taking up academic positions he worked in the trade union movement and at the educational NGO, the SACHED Trust in the 1980s, and as consultant researcher for the post-1994 local, provincial and national governments (land reform, housing, informal settlements, forestry re-structuring and heritage). His academic teaching and research has been at various universities in South Africa, some African countries and abroad, including participation in some UNESCO and International Council of Museums (ICOM) research workshops related to culture, heritage and diversity. He held positions as head of the departments of Anthropology at the Universities of Durban-Westville and Witwatersrand, and was the Head of the School of Social Science at the University of Witwatersrand.  He has been active on the boards of the International Council of Museums committee for history and archaeology (ICMAH), and the local South Africa ICOM committee, the Public Affairs Research Institute, Centre for Critical Diversity Studies, African Centre for Migration and Society and the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research and was part of the Department of Science and Technology team that inaugurates from 2018 the MA in e-Science Research for Humanities. Currently he holds the Archie Mafeje Chair in Critical Humanities and the directorship of the School of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics.