Ela Bhatt Visiting Professorship

Dr. Iqrar A. Khan is a Distinguished National Professor. He earned his PhD from the University of California, Riverside. He released a potato- and 10 mango varieties in Pakistan, and contributed to the discovery of new botanical varieties of wheat in Oman. He has authored 370 publications, including a 2018 book on Sustainable Agriculture. He drafted Punjab Agriculture Policy. As Vice-Chancellor, he revamped UAF academics, research/innovation, outreach and internationalization. UAF had emerged in the top 100 universities as ranked by the QS/NTU subject rankings.  He founded five new universities and sub-campuses and a Center of Advanced Studies in Agriculture and Food Security.

He is a recipient of the Pakistan civil award Sitara-e-Imtiaz and “Ordre des Palmes Académiques” with the grade of Officer by the French Government.

AREA OF RESEARCH/SPECIALIZATION
Political economy of development; Economic policy, especially industrial policy; State restructuring and neoliberalism; Labour precarity and corporate restructuring; Trade unions in transformation.


Dr. Nicolas Pons-Vignon is Senior Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Economic and Finance, where he coordinates the Masters in Applied Development Economics, South Africa’s only pluralist economics programme. He is the founding editor of the Global Labour Column and started the African Programme on Rethinking Development Economics (APORDE) in 2007. He has taught at numerous universities and engaged in policy research ranging from industrial policy to minimum wages. Before moving to South Africa in 2004, he worked at the OECD Development centre in Paris, where he researched the link between land and violent conflict. He has a PhD from EHESS (Paris) and a Master's from SOAS (London).


Selected recent publications

  • with Mark Anner and Uma Rani (2019)  ‘A critique of the World Bank’s report The changing nature of work’, Global Labour Journal, Vol. 10, No. 1.
  • with Susan Hayter (2018) ‘Industrial relations and inclusive development in South Africa: A dream deferred?’, in S. Hayter and S. Lee (eds.) Industrial Relations in Emerging Economies, London and Geneva: ILO and Edward Elgar.
  • (2015) ‘Caught in the Grip of the Market: Agricultural and Forestry Workers in Post-apartheid South Africa’, in Carlos Oya & Nicola Pontara (eds.), Rural Wage Employment in Developing Countries: Theory, Evidence and Policy, London: Routledge
  • with Aurelia Segatti (2013) ‘Stuck in Stabilisation? South Africa’s post-apartheid macro-economic policy between ideological conversion and technocratic capture’, Review of African Political Economy, Vol. 40, No. 138.

AREA OF RESEARCH/SPECIALIZATION

Civilisational Crisis, Empire, African political economy, South African International Relations, Transnational Systemic Alternatives and Emancipatory Futures

Dr. Vishwas Satgar is Associate Professor of International Relations at the University of the Witwatersrand, editor of the Democratic Marxism Series, principal investigator for the  Emancipatory Futures Studies in the Anthropocene project. He chairs the board of the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Center and has been the co-founder of numerous campaigns, the most recent being the South African Food Sovereignty Campaign and the Climate Justice Charter Process. He has been an activist for over 3 decades in South Africa.

Selected recent publications
He recently edited Racism After Apartheid – Challenges for Marxism and Anti-racism (2019, WITS University Press) and Cooperatives in South Africa-Advancing Solidarity Economy Pathways From Below (2019, UKZN Press).

Anjum Munir is an Associate Professor/ Chairman at the department of Energy Systems Engineering at the University of Agriculture Faisalabad. In 2010, he received his PhD from the University of Kassel. For the time being, he is involved in a project on "Development of solar-assisted multi-crop dryers and energy-efficient storage structures for value addition and food security".

      AREA OF RESEARCH/SPECIALIZATION
      Gender and Public Policies, with specialization in Care Policies and Welfare, and Comprehensive Sexuality Education.

      Eleonor Faur is an Associate Professor at the Instituto de Altos Estudios Sociales, National University of San Martín (IDAES- UNSAM), and a Researcher at the Center for Social Research, based at the Institute for Economic and Social Development (CIS-IDES). During her career, her interests combined social research and teaching with policy dialogue, program design and management. Before joining the University, she led UNFPA’s Argentina Country Office for almost 7 years, and served as Programe Coordinator for UNICEF and UNDP in Colombia and Argentina. She is a sociologist and holds a PhD. in Social Sciences by FLACSO (Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales).

        Carlos Salas was born in Mexico and currently lives in Brazil, where he is a Guest Professor at Cesit/IE Unicamp.

        His research interest lies in the area of labor economics and development, in particular in Latin American countries. He has done research on micro-economic units, informal sector, precariousness and job segregation, with particular emphasis on gender issues.

            AREA OF RESEARCH/SPECIALIZATION
            Trade unions and working class politics, South African politics, ecological Marxism, development studies.

            Devan Pillay is currently head of the Department of Sociology, the University of the Witwatersrand (on sabbatical). Before joining the university in 2001 he worked for the South African Labour Bulletin, and the National Union of Mineworkers, as well as stints at the University of Durban (UDW) as Director of Social Policy and national government as a Director of Policy (GCIS).  He was active in the anti-apartheid struggle, and spent time in prison.

            Selected recent publications

            Devan Pillay (2019): Happiness, wellbeing and ecosocialism – a radical humanist perspective, Globalizations, DOI: 10.1080/14747731.2019.1652470

            AREA OF RESEARCH/SPECIALIZATION
            Political Economy of Development, with particular reference to Labour, Agriculture, Natural Resources, Public Finance, Education, and History of Economic Thought.

            Praveen Kumar Jha, Professor of Economics and currently Chairperson of the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP) and Adjunct Professor at the Centre for Informal Sector and Labour Studies (CISLS), is with the School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. 

            He obtained his MA in Economics and later his PhD in Economics in 1984 and 1996 respectively at the Center for Economics Studies and Planning at the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Prior to joining the Center as a Professor, he taught at St. Stephen´s College, University of Delhi and at Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration, Mussoorie. He has been a Visiting Fellow to several Institutions / Universities, including the University of Bremen (Germany); Tianjin University of Finance and Economics (China); Rhodes University, Grahamstown (South Africa) and African Institute of Agrarian Studies, Harare (Zimbabwe); International Labour Organisation, Geneva and Kassel University (Germany).  He has also been associated with several research studies with the UN institutions such as the ILO, the UNICEF, the UNDP, the FAO, etc. He is one of the Editors of a tri-continental journal, Agrarian South: Journal of Political Economy as well as on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Indian Journal of Labour Economics.

            AREA OF RESEARCH/SPECIALIZATION
            Gender and Labour Studies

            Akua Opokua Britwumis a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Cape Coast. She holds a PhD from the Maastricht University, the Netherlands. She obtained her first and second degrees from the University of Ghana, Legon. She also holds a Post Graduate Certificate in Education from the University of Cape Coast. Her research and publications cover sexual harassment, the economics of violence against women, gender mainstreaming in Ghanaian Universities, gender and land rights, gender and leadership in trade unions, organising informal economy workers as well as trade union participation and representation.

            Institution: University of Agricultural Sciences, GKVK, Bangalore (India)

            Specialization: Plant Reproductive Ecology, Conservation Biology, Insect Behaviour & Crop Breeding

            Specialization: Food Science, Food microbiology, (Food safety and Food biotechnology)

            Institution: Egerton University, Kenya

            Trained scientist in applied Sciences specializing in microbiology (Food microbiology‐Safety), has conducted applied research in applied microbiology related to current and emerging issues in food safety and value addition in developing countries especially in sub‐Saharan Africa. Matofari's main research interest is food safety, food biotechnology and value addition in emerging and traditional biotechnologies related to food security, livelihoods and environmental conservation.

            AREA OF RESEARCH/SPECIALIZATION
            Analysis of the labour market and labour relations, poverty and gender issues, SME development, and development economics in the Department of Economics, University of Ghana.

            Prof. Dr. Gaochao He is the Co-Director of the International Center for Joint Labor Research in the Department of political science - Sun Yat-Sen University, Guangzhou, China.

            Prof. Dr. Michelle Williams is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in Johannesburg South Africa and chairperson for the Global Labour University Programme (GLU) at Wits.

            Paulo Baltar is a professor at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP), São Paulo, Brazil and works in the field of labour economics.

            Prof. Dr. Sharit K. Bhowmik† was a professor of labour studies and Dean of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, India.

            Prof. Dr. Sharit K. Bhowmik† was a professor of labour studies and Dean of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai, India.

            Sakhela Maxwell Buhlungu is currently dean of humanities at the University of Cape Town vice-chancellor and the University of Fort Hare.

            Juan J. Jimenez-Osornio is a professor at the Campus of Biological and Agricultural Sciences at the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán.

            Dr. Muhammad Younas was formerly a professor and Dean (2007-2010) of the Faculty of Animal Husbandry at theUniversity of Agriculture in Faisalabad, Pakistan.

            Edward Webster is a professor emeritus from the School of Social Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa.  He is currently a research professor for the Society, Work and Development Institute (SWOP).