THANDIWE NTSHINGA
Writer/ Social Researcher/ Editor
I AM A WRITER/ SOCIAL RESEARCHER/EDITOR . AFTER REALISING MY KNACK FOR WRITING, I BEGAN WORKING AS A FREELANCE WRITER IN 2014. THIS HAS INVOLVED ACADEMIC TEXTS (PRINT AND ONLINE), ONLINE ARTICLES AND REVIEWS. MY RESEARCH ABILITIES STEM FROM MY EDUCATIONAL BACKGROUND WITH A BA DEGREE IN INTERNATIONAL STUDIES AS WELL AS AN HONOURS AND MASTERS DEGREE IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY.
I am acutely interested in addressing social issues with a particular interest in marginalised groups and voices.
I seek to produce impactful content that bridges the gap between academia and the public. My blog, Black Womxn Rants, makes the personal political, with an intersectional analysis of everyday happenings and injustices.
Book Contributions
I WANT TO GO HOME FOREVER : STORIES OF BECOMING AND BELONGING IN SOUTH AFRICA'S GREAT METROPOLIS
Check out my latest contribution in this published book. The narratives, collected by researchers, journalists and writers, reflect the many facets of South Africa's post-apartheid decades. Taken together, they speak of the emotions and relations emanating from the space between outrage and hope, violence and solidarity, the making of selves and the other and of how people's past and intersections are shaping South Africa. Underlying them all is a nostalgia for an imagined future that will never been realised. These are stories of forever seeking a place called home.
Shade of Whiteness
​
The ‘master narrative of whiteness’, a term coined by Melissa Steyn, cemented a discourse which was employed to justify colonialism in Africa. The exercise of power over Africans was based on whiteness’ dominant discourse which alluded to notions of the superiority of the white race over the ‘savage, uncivilised, African heathen’. Attempts to repress and oppress African people were based on imperialist ideologies which placed, supported by racist eugenics, ‘Africans into a fundamentally different and irrevocably inferior position’. The master narrative of whiteness proliferated in a unique manner in South Africa as a means to social, political and economic dominance of the white minority under the Apartheid regime. Institutionalised racism in South Africa stemmed from the dominant discourse of whiteness which portrayed European settlers as an ‘Enlightened’ people. In South Africa, this notion was mobilised to ensure the dominance of the white population. Justifications for the exploitation of the country’s ‘non-white’ population revolved around ideas of biological inferiority and incompetence of blacks, coloureds and Indians. These rationalisations, in turn, also shaped the formation of white identity in South Africa.Poor whites, however, proved a problematic to these rationalisations and notions of whiteness by exposing the myth of white superiority. By presenting a brief history of poor whites in South Africa between the 1890s and 1990s, I argue that the presence of poor whites was a constant threat, challenge and embarrassment to South African formations of white identity.My argument will be highlighted by poor whites’ position in relation to the political economy and the numerous measures and interventions aimed at the eradication of white poverty in South Africa. Furthermore the dominant class’ attitudes towards poor whites will be explored in unravelling ‘the poor white problem’
​
Link: https://brill.com/view/book/9781848883833/BP000007.xml
SELF-PUBLISHED DEBUT NOVEL BY YOUNG, BLACK SOUTH AFRICAN. WORTH READING? FOR SURE…[BOOK REVIEW]
Dear Private Sector, your silence is comfortable uncomfortable
South Africa has long had an issue with gender-based violence, femicide and xenophobia. I participated in and covered #SandtonShutdown.
​
​
Deafening white noise
Culture Review Magazine republished my blog post for their magazine
​
Link: https://www.culture-review.co.za/deafening-white-noise
#GOALS: RE-IMAGINING AN AFRICA WHERE GENDER AND SEXUALITY IS FLUID
"A guest post by Thandiwe Ntshinga that covers the current waves of activism in South Africa that are working to combat their major problems of gender-based violence and xenophobia towards African migrants. The ease with which she connects South Africa's history of rape culture and hostility towards migrants with a lack of government interference, corrupt police forces, and the social movements that have developed as a result, tells me I'm very lucky that *she* was the one to write this article for my blog." -
Kella Hanna-Wayne, Yopp!Voice
​
Rape Culture, Gender Based Violence, and Femicide in South Africa
Self- published and written whilst committed in a psychiatric institution for depression, Phumlani Pikoli has come out with an eerily tantalizing depiction of his thoughts during this time of his life.
​
​
​
Before foreign invasion. Before cultural imperialism. Before the internalisation of Western values and ideals- there was a time of a tolerant and nuanced Africa- well much of it anyway.
​
​
Link: https://www.okayafrica.com/re-imagining-an-africa-where-gender-and-sexuality-is-fluid/
You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock: Gender-Based Violence and Xenophobia in South Africa
Articles
CONTACT
Get in touch with me for more information about my previous publications and upcoming releases.
Johannesburg, South Africa
In "Rape Culture, Gender Based Violence, and Femicide in South Africa,"Thandiwe Ntshinga assesses why South Africa is one of the most dangerous countries for womxn.- My Sister's Magazine
Link : mysistersmag.com/subscribe
