Since receiving my teaching award, I have been lucky enough to be invited to attend conferences and universities all over the world… it is an amazing experience and I have never felt so lucky.
My most recent travel was to South Africa to visit University of Witwatersand, Johannesburg (known as Wits) and Rhodes University, Grahamstown.
Before going to South Africa I must say I knew little about the country apart from some of the history of apartheid. The country has such is a rich a complex history with apartheid only one of many significant chapters. I found the country and the many people I met to be inspiring and hopeful, though much of what is happening is also heart-breaking.
In response, I did what I usually do when I try and make sense of the things that I see… I wrote an article in collaboration with Dr Nicky Falkof who is based at Wits. What I found was that apartheid might be over, but racial categorisation continues in South Africa. So after 20 years since the (official) end of apartheid, race still colours almost every national conversation . As an outsider, I found this confronting. Even polite dinner discussions raise all sorts of questions about white economic privilege, affirmative action policies, guilt, responsibility, retribution and blame. You can read the article here…
Though many conservative commentators would never admit it, there is no doubt that much of the criticism leveled at the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, is because she is a woman – revealing an underlying sexism in our society. This is not defending her policies, performance, or any other aspect of her government. This was well documented in an 
