Executive Council

​Dr Gcobani Qambela joined the University of Johannesburg Anthropology and Development Studies department in July 2018. His research, broadly, intersects the Anthropology of Masculinities, Sexual and Reproductive Health, and the Anthropology of Childhoods and Youth. His doctoral work focused on the lives of young Xhosa men living in a rural and peri-urbanising context. Through his doctoral work, Dr Qambela developed what he calls the Anthropology of Boyhoods. Prior to joining UJ, Dr Qambela taught at Rhodes University, North West University, as well for international universities including Organization for Tropical Studies and Duke University, Florida International University and Quest University. Dr Qambela has worked in the non-governmental sector, specifically for the Centre for AIDS Development Research and Evaluation, where he got to work on various consultative projects for Johns Hopkins Health and Education South Africa, the South African Department of Social Development and the Academy for Educational Development among others.

Selected publications

Qambela, G. 2019. “”Mna ndiyayazi uba ndizotshata intommbazana ” (Re)creating ‘family’ and reflections on rural-based lesbian women’s experiences of child rearing and kinship,” in Morison, T., Lynch, I., Reddy, V. (Eds). 2019. Queer Kinship: South African Perspectives on the Sexual Politics of Family-Making and Belonging. Unisa Press: Pretoria.

Qambela, G. 2018. “Living in constant anticipation of death; loss, grief and death as political instruments in Dagmawi Woubshet’s ‘The Calendar of Loss’“, Journal of Contemporary African Studies, 36(3)

Qambela, G. 2016. ““There is no such thing as a single-issue struggle”: Xenophobia in the time of decolonisation, eRhini, 2015,” Agenda 30 (2): 35-45

Qambela, G. 2016. “When they found out I was a man… they became even more violent”: autoethnography and the rape of men,” Graduate Journal of Social Science 12 (3): 179-205

Qambela, G. 2016. “Seeing ourselves as we are,” in Qunta, Y. 2016. Writing What We Like: A New Generation Speaks. Tafelberg: Cape Town.