Post-Doctoral Researcher Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. |
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Training | Pamela Ngwenya studied Geography at the Universities of Edinburgh and Oxford. She completed her doctorate at the University of Oxford Centre for the Environment in 2009 with a thesis entitled ‘The Ethical Geographies of Caribbean Sugar’. Her research addressed the ethics and politics of Caribbean sugar traded under Europe's 'Sugar Protocol' agreement and drew upon a diverse set of ethical philosophies, qualitative research methods and empirical data. She is also a Participatory and Community Video facilitator. |
Career | From 2010-14, Pamela was an Andrew Mellon scholar and then Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Built Environment and Development Studies at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, primarily focused on research and writing. She undertook an action research project in Zimbabwe on the subject of sustainable agro-food initiatives with an emphasis on public-oriented multi-media outputs. As part of the Fellowship, she also worked with the Centre for Civil Society to establish a community video resource, running workshops with over 100 community-based trainees. Over the past 8 years, Pamela has also managed and implemented several film projects and video training programs with youth, farming and women’s groups in the UK, the Caribbean and Southern Africa. |
Experience abroad | Lived and/or undertaken research in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, Barbados, Jamaica, St Kitts, U.S.A. |
Research | As a geographer, Pamela is interested in the inter-relations of social and material worlds, and has a wide range of research interests including agri-food studies, feminist geography, collaborative methodologies and bio-philosophies. She is currently collaborating on the Trans-SEC project in Tanzania, with a focus on participation, gender and socio-cultural patterns of difference. Her PhD research explored the ethical dimensions of an agri-food network and developed innovative modes of enquiry, including video methods, which sought to deepen attention to situated knowledges, embodiment and ecological agencies. Building on this, her postdoctoral studies in Zimbabwe focused on (1) the relations between socio-ecological imagination and transformative practice, and (2) participatory video as a tool for visioning the future, whilst developing public-oriented multi-media outputs as a form of scholar-activism. |
Current Research Projects | Gender and socio-cultural differences in participative stakeholder systems and knowledge transfer within the GlobE project Trans-SEC: Innovating Strategies to safeguard Food Security using Technology and Knowledge Transfer: A people-centred Approach - funded by BMBF. Social Sciences: Knowledge, collaborative learning and action” within the GlobE project ReLOAD: Reduction of Post Harvest Losses and Value Addition in East African Food Value Chains - funded by BMBF |
Teaching | At DITSL, Pamela Ngwenya is involved in co-supervision of MSc and PhD students. At the University of KwaZulul-Natal, she lectured on ‘Sustainable Cities and Development’ and as a PhD student at the University of Oxford, she tutored social geography and ran a Masters reading group on embodied geographies. She has considerable experience with facilitating the practical learning of video production skills in community contexts. |