I’m Phoebe Kisubi Mbasalaki, I refer to myself as a nomadic subject, I was originally born in Uganda but have lived on several continents. I recently moved to the University of Essex where I’m a lecturer at the Department of Sociology, before that I was based in South Africa. My research focuses on gender and sexuality and it’s intersections with race and class.
The starting point would be doing my bachelor there. This was both being equipped but also becoming of a political subject, being conscious and getting to know the South African context in terms of colonialism and apartheid. I grew up watching this in television but living there opened up these intersections between race, class and gender, so I became politically aware as a student in that space. That awareness led me to seek social justice and I think that awakening led me to feel at home in South Africa.
Since then, all my academic work has been rooted in social justice. That’s the strong connection: South Africa is where I became awoken!
And I also studied at the University of Cape Town, which is a beautiful city! Who would not love to wake up at the mountain or the sea? I also got fully introduced to enjoyment in terms of food and wine. I also have really strong interpersonal connections at the university from my student days, many of whom I still connect with now. Many of them are still in Cape Town and are doing really amazing transformative work at the university, and were really influential in my progress as an academic. I’m still connected to them while I work in different places, every time I go back there, I feel at home because of these bonds. I have my South African family as I called them.
