People
Dr Ruth Castel-Branco
Research Manager
Ruth Castel-Branco is the Research Manager on the Future of Work Project. She has a BA in Geography and African Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison (2005), an MA in Development Studies from the University of KwaZulu-Natal (2012) and a PhD in Sociology from the University of the Witwatersrand (2021). Previously, Ruth worked at the International Labour Office in Mozambique on social and maternity protection. She first became interested in questions of labour as a student activist, eventually cutting her teeth as a labour organiser at DC Jobs with Justice. Ruth is an alumnus of the International Centre for Development and Decent Work and a fellow of the Open Society Foundations’ Inequality Fellowship. Her research interests include agrarian transformation and the changing nature of work, (informal) workers’ rights and organization, the redistributive role of the state and social protection.
ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9907-2503
Dr Hannah Dawson
Senior Researcher
Hannah Dawson is a Senior Researcher at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies. Her research interests include youth marginality and unemployment, informal and precarious work, inequality, the future of work, and new forms of social protection in the Global South. Hannah has a doctorate in Anthropology from the University of Oxford and is currently a (non-resident) fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. She is working on a book manuscript that traces the lives, livelihoods and struggles of young men to examine how mass joblessness is engendering new forms of social, economic and political life in South Africa. This research builds upon her earlier scholarship on the political subjectivities of unemployed youth and the complex ecology of patronage politics. At SCIS, she will focus her research energies on two projects: the ‘future of work(ers)’ project alongside another project that takes the welfare responses to the 沙巴体育官网_2024欧洲杯博彩app@ pandemic and the renewed calls for basic income as an entry point to examine the political and institutional drivers of social policy in South Africa. Hannah has previously worked in policy research, analysis and advocacy in the fields of development, socio-economic rights, and poverty and inequality in both research and civil society organisations.
ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4214-2117
Fikile Masikane
Research Assistant
Fikile Masikane is Professor Edward Webster’s Research Assistant on the Future of Work Project. She is currently pursuing a PhD in Industrial Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand. She is an exchange fellow at Science Po Lyon (France) supervised by Professor Samadia SADOUNI. She is a Next Generation of Social Sciences in Africa Fellow (2020). Previously, Fikile worked as a Research Consultant on the ‘Urban Peripheries’ Project, for the Department of Urban Planning and Architecture at Sheffield University (United Kingdom). She worked as a Researcher for Adv. Tembeka Ngcukaitobi particularly in the book The Land Is Ours. She has also worked as a Research Advisor for the South African Human Rights Commission under Adv. Tseliso Thipayane (CEO). Her research interests include black emancipation through labour and religion.
Seipati Mokhema
Associate Researcher
Seipati Bianca Mokhema is an Associate Researcher with the Future of Work(ers). She holds a BSocSc in Development Studies and an MSc in Sociology, both from the North-West University. Seipati’s research interests lie in higher education and employment trends for young people, technological innovation’s impact on the future of work, cultural studies as well as emancipatory social sciences research methodologies. Before joining the SCIS, she worked as a junior researcher for the Human Sciences Research Council. She has published a book chapter on the #FeesMustFall student protest movement and an opinion piece on the poor leadership in South Africa.