Lwando Scott

Next Generation Scholar

Dr Lwando Scott is a Next Generation Scholar at the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape. Lwando’s research focus at the CHR is on what he loosely terms “queering the postcolony”.  Lwando is looking to develop this concept of “queering the postcolony” and incorporate, engage, challenge, and stretch concepts such as decolonisation, sexuality (queerness), gender, culture, and futurities within the post-colonial South African context. In some ways, this research focus is a continuation of Lwando’s work in Queer African Studies which has been the focus of his university career. Lwando’s doctoral research before coming to the CHR was on same-sex marriage in South Africa with the thesis title, “The more you stretch them, the more they grow: Same-sex marriage and the wrestle with heteronormativity”. During the PhD years, Lwando was an Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research Fellow at Ghent University in 2016/17. He was awarded the Yale-Fox Fellowship at Yale University in 2013/14. Lwando has been involved with the SHAWCO winter school program teaching ‘critical sociology of volunteering’ at UCT (2015-2019). He was also an assistant lecturer in Diversity Studies at UCT. Lwando holds a Master of Science in Social Responsibility (2010) from St Cloud State University in Minnesota. Scott’s work, academic and otherwise, is centred on advancing queer politics in South Africa. His work interrogates narrow definitions of “Africanness”, definitions that seek to position African queer people as existing outside that “Africanness”.