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Natasha Vally


Next Generation Scholar

South African Social Assistance and the 2012 Privatised National Payment System: An examination of insecurities and technopolitics in social grant administration and payment. She has undergraduate and honours degrees in mathematics and genetics and holds a Masters degree in history. She works, across disciplines, on the technopolitical in post-apartheid South Africa. Her favourite movie is Blade Runner, she awaits the sequel with anticipation.

Call for Papers: International Workshop in Visual History and Theory, October 2026

Application deadline: 17 July

Public Lecture: ‘Moving Between Facts and Fabulations: Some Notes’ with Marcos Martins, State University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ)

A public lecture in conjunction with the CHR annual Winter School Programme.

Film Screening and Lecture: Border? What Border?, with Morna Regan and Lynne Parker

A Charlotte Maxeke-Mary Robinson Research Chair film screening and lecture, in conjunction with the CHR’s annual Winter School Programme.

Technics and the Urban: UK-SA Chair in Culture and Technics annual workshop.

The  UK-SA Chair in Culture & Technics, a bilateral programme between the British Academy and South Africa’s National Research Foundation, convenes an international study network that traces how the exercise of power relates to the co-evolution of the human and technology.

Humanities in Session: Indenture Aesthetics in South Africa with Jordache Ellapen

In this public conversation, Jordache Ellapen engages his newly published book, Indenture Aesthetics: Afro-Indian Femininities and the Queer Limits of South African Blackness.

Encounters Documentary Film Festival: Encounters Talks

We are delighted to once again collaborate with Encounters Documentary Film Festival, and will be hosting a series of Encounters Talks at Iyatsiba Lab on 5 and 6 June.

Workshop: The Physics of Technocultural Locations

The Transnational Technocultures Research Group (Rayvon Fouchè | Northwestern University, Premesh Lalu | University of the Western Cape, Tiziana Terranova | University of Naples L’Orientale, Domietta Torlasco | Northwestern University) invites you to, The Physics of Technocultural Locations.

Public Workshop: In Slavery’s Wake: Making Black Freedom in the World

The CHR, in collaboration with the Ruth J. Simmons Center for the Study of Slavery & Justice at Brown University, the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, and Iziko Museums of South Africawill be hosting in Slavery’s Wake: making Black Freedom in the World, on 27 May 2026.

Facts and Fabulations

The exhibition Facts and Fabulations is the outcome of a Digital Curatorial Fellowship from the New Archival Visions Programme at the UWC Centre for Humanities Research. The project demonstrates how academic research can become a public, accessible, and participatory cultural experience.

DSTI-NRF Call for Application Endorsements: UK-SA (NRF) Bilateral Chair in Culture and Technics, & SARChI Chair in Visual History and Theory.

The Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) invites applications from candidates seeking grantholder endorsement for DSTI-NRF Master’s and Doctoral Student Funding for the academic year 2027. Successful applicants will work alongside a team of leading researchers at the CHR under either the UK-SA Bilateral Chair in Culture and Technics, or the SARChI Chair in Visual History and Theory.