Dr Buntu Siwisa grew up in Port Elizabeth and Alice in the Eastern Cape. He obtained his D. Phil. in Politics from the University of Oxford, St. Peter’s College (2006), on a Rhodes Scholarship. His thesis examined the oeuvres of protests of anti-neoliberal social movements in the context of public-private partnerships of water delivery in Hammarsdale, Durban, 1998 – 2005. Prior that, he graduated for his M.A. (Economic History and Development Studies); B.A. (Hons), (Economic History) and B.A. (Economic History & Legal Studies) from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN), Durban.
He has a worked as a research fellow affiliated to the African Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), on the High-Level Panel on the Assessment of Key Legislation and the Acceleration of Fundamental Change. In the panel, chaired by former President Kgalema Motlanthe and reporting to parliament, he led on research and writing for the working group on Social Cohesion and Nation Building.
Previously, he has worked for government in international relations on Southern Africa and SADC; at ACCORD as Senior Researcher and Manager of the Knowledge Production Department. He also was Leader of the Masters Programme in South African Political Economy and Senior Lecturer in Politics at the Nelson Mandela University, Port Elizabeth. He had also had a stint as a research associate with the Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD-Ghana) in Accra, Ghana.
He is a member of the Peace and Security cluster of the BRICS Academic Forum since 2013, representing South Africa in the fora of 2013 (eThekwini, South Africa); 2015 (Moscow, Russia); 2016 (Goa, India), and 2018 (Johannesburg, South Africa).
His publications include:
- BRICS: Funding the Nexus Between Peace, Security and Development, (book chapter to be published by HSRC in 2019).
- Searching for Rural Women’s Development and Social Cohesion in South Africa’s Legislative Framework (1994 – 2017), (book chapter to be published by Springer Publishers in 2019).
- New Security Threats, or Old Threats Gone New? (BRICS Journal, Issue 3, February / March 2017).
- BRICS at Seven: Finding and Funding the Nexus between Peace, Security and Development in Africa, (published in 2015, as part of the BRICS VII Academic Forum proceedings, Moscow, Russia.)
- Africa’s Peace and Security Challenges in the Context of BRICS (published in July 2014, as part of the BRICS VI South Africa Academic Forum during the Sixth BRICS Summit; Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO); Pretoria, South Africa).
- Celebrating Nelson Mandela’s Legacy: A Colloquium on Diversity, Cohesion and Integration, in Conflict Trends, Issue 3, 2013, ACCORD, Durban.
- Social Citizenship and the Emergence of the New Social Movements in Post-Apartheid South Africa, (2011), (Chapter 8) in, Development Dilemmas in Post-Apartheid South Africa, co-edited by Bill Freund and Harald Witt, (University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, Pietermaritzburg).
- Crowd Renting or Struggling From Below?: The Concerned Citizens’ Forum in Mpumalanga Township, Durban, 1998 – 2005, Journal of Southern African Studies, December 2008, (34) 4.
Dr. Siwisa has also published some short stories. Who Shoved Humpty Dumpty? (1999), WriteAgain I (www.litnet.co.za). The Big Bad Wolf was published in In the Rapids (2001) (Kwela Books, Cape Town), an anthology of South African short stories edited by Jakes Gerwel and Linda Rodes. Run, Afrika Run! was published in the magazine, Icarus, of Sommerville College, University of Oxford (2001). He is hoping to publish his novel, I Must Hide Him, whose manuscript he completed writing in November 2018