Faith Mkwananzi
Biographic Data
| ID | 81402 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Faith Mkwananzi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Faith |
| FAMILY NAME | Mkwananzi |
| SIGNATURE | MKWANANZI F |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of the Free State |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-8381-4007 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 26 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 22 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 26 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2015 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Social research through the lived experiences of Global South researchers: Epistemic contributions from the South
This editorial introduces a special issue on Social Research through Lived Experiences: Epistemic Contributions from the Global South, which advances methodological debates by examining how scholars’ lived realities are mobilised as methodological resources rather than treated as background context. While Global South knowledge systems remain marginalised within dominant academic structures, the contributions do not simply adopt established quali…
Working as facilitators and co-researchers: Opportunities, tensions and complexities in educational participatory research
In this paper, we transcend the boundaries of conventional academic writing and embrace the African philosophical concept of conversationalism to create an honest and decolonial space, albeit imperfect, in which we can talk about the messiness of participatory research. Engaging in a dialectical conversation with each other, we share our reflections on and respond to four lines of questioning related to: onto-epistemology; axiology; methodology; …
Internationalization at a distance via virtual mobility in the Global South: Advances and challenges
Internationalization of higher education (HE) has increasingly been a subject of interest among scholars, due to developments in the field, such as increased student and staff mobility, inter‐university research and teaching partnerships, and rapid technological advancements. Internationalization efforts have mainly focused on the recruitment of international students and staff to universities in the Global North, the establishment of satellite c…
Weaving Heritage: The Narrative Capabilities and Herstories of Tonga Women
This paper is positioned within critical African heritage studies and looks into the process of storytelling with the Tonga artist community in Zimbabwe, for whom heritage has long been a contested space due to historical exclusion from self-narration. The research is based on participatory art research with eight Tonga women and four artists, aiming to strengthen local art skills and advocate for the recognition of Tonga heritage within broader …
Ecological Heritage and Relational Informal Learning for Youth Development in Southern Africa
This paper situates itself at the nexus of youth development and ecological heritage in Southern Africa, critically engaging with enduring challenges such as unemployment, poverty, and the gradual erosion of cultural identity. It examines the potential of Moringa oleifera as a key ecological resource for fostering sustainable livelihoods and reinforcing localised ecological and cultural heritage. Drawing on participatory methodologies including i…
Exploring an alternative access route to higher education in South Africa: A human development and social justice analysis
Widening access to higher education is one of the key policy priorities for many countries and institutions globally. While the concern has been to increase the number of young people entering university, there has also been interest in the diversity of people entering university, such as women, working students, and those from rural communities. This paper builds on that body of knowledge by combining ideas from the capability approach and socia…
Becoming a Teacher: The Liminal Identities and Political Agency of Refugee Teachers
This paper engages with the experiences of refugee teachers through an identity-based conceptualisation of the capability approach to explore these teachers’ social environment, working conditions, values, and lived experiences. The research builds on the teachers’ capabilities literature to argue that norms, dynamics, and identities shape their political agency, opportunities, and constraints, providing nuanced understandings of their experience…
Transformative youth development through heritage projects: Connecting Political, Creative, and Cultural Capabilities
This article draws on our continuous artistic engagement with Tonga youth in Zimbabwe over the last four years and offers a critical analysis of their transformation. We use the intersecting concepts of political and cultural capabilities to argue how arts-based participation in civic spaces has enabled them to shift the power balances, fostering them as epistemic agents and change-makers. Their journey across three arts and heritage workshops sh…
Out-of-school girls’ lives in Zimbabwe: What can we learn from a storytelling research approach
This paper focuses on the experiences of out-of-school girls in Zimbabwe. It draws on a research strand of SAGE (Supporting Adolescent Girls’ Education), a UKAid programme funded through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) initiative. Using a digital storytelling approach the research highlights critical events that have changed girls’ lives and impacted on how they see their futures. The pap…
Post-Conflict Participatory Arts
Migration at Work: Aspirations, Imaginaries & Structures of Mobility
Migration and Labour Mobility\nThe willingness to migrate in search of employment is in itself insufficient to compel anyone to move. The dynamics of labour mobility are heavily influenced by the opportunities perceived and the imaginaries held by both employers and regulating authorities in relation to migrant labour. This volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the structures and imaginaries underlying various forms of mobili…
From Streets to Developing Aspirations: How Does Collective Agency for Education Change Marginalised Migrant Youths' Lives
This paper provides an account of migrant youths’ experiences of access to education through a social initiative-driven school and highlights how these youths developed pathways of aspirations to work for the good of the community. In doing so, the paper also provides a lens to the issues of migration in Southern Africa and a context in which to understand how collective action (agency) for education can deeply transform marginalised migrants’ as…
Contextualising Youth Migration and Education
Migrant Stories: A Picture of Youth Migration in Southern Africa
Capabilities and Barriers to Higher Education Aspirations Formation for Marginalised Migrants
Education, Migration and Development: Looking Beyond the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Understanding Migrants Valued Capabilities and Functionings
Higher Educational Aspirations Formation in Contexts of Disadvantage
Education, Youth and Migration from a Capability Lens
An Intersectional Analysis of Capabilities, Conversion Factors and Aspirations
Higher Education, Youth and Migration in Contexts of Disadvantage: Understanding Aspirations and Capabilities
Participatory action research: Towards (non-ideal) epistemic justice in a university in South Africa
The paper explores the possibilities for promoting epistemic justice in a South African university setting through a participatory action-based photovoice research project in which university researchers worked alongside undergraduate students with no prior experience of doing research. The student voices are employed to understand how learning as capability development and agency expansion can advance epistemic justice in a university setting of…
Capabilities expansion for marginalised migrant youths in Johannesburg: The case of Albert Street School
In this article, we used the capability approach as normative grounding to analyse a particular faith-based intervention targeting ‘youth at the margins’ – in this instance, marginalised migrant youths from Zimbabwe living in Johannesburg, South Africa. We used Albert Street School (AS School), run by Johannesburg’s Central Methodist Church, as our case study to show how this faith-based organisation, through its focus on education, created not o…
Youth, Gender and the Capabilities Approach to Development: Rethinking Opportunities and Agency from a Human Development Perspective
Youth, Gender and the Capabilities Approach to Development: Rethinking Opportunities and Agency from a Human Development Perspective." Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 20(1), pp. 117–118
Multidimensional disadvantages and educational aspirations of marginalised migrant youth: Insights from the Global South
This article provides a Global South perspective on marginalised migrant youth and higher educational aspirations, with a specific focus on South Africa. We use data from a case study in Johannesburg to illustrate how marginalised migrant youth experience particular forms of disadvantage in their endeavours to realise their educational aspirations. Yet, educational opportunities and the achievement of educational aspirations may enhance dimension…
Participatory action research: Towards (non-ideal) epistemic justice in a university in South Africa
The paper explores the possibilities for promoting epistemic justice in a South African university setting through a participatory action-based photovoice research project in which university researchers worked alongside undergraduate students with no prior experience of doing research. The student voices are employed to understand how learning as capability development and agency expansion can advance epistemic justice in a university setting of…
Challenges in accessing higher education: A case study of marginalised young people in one South African informal settlement
From Streets to Developing Aspirations: How Does Collective Agency for Education Change Marginalised Migrant Youths' Lives
This paper provides an account of migrant youths’ experiences of access to education through a social initiative-driven school and highlights how these youths developed pathways of aspirations to work for the good of the community. In doing so, the paper also provides a lens to the issues of migration in Southern Africa and a context in which to understand how collective action (agency) for education can deeply transform marginalised migrants’ as…
Transformative youth development through heritage projects: Connecting Political, Creative, and Cultural Capabilities
This article draws on our continuous artistic engagement with Tonga youth in Zimbabwe over the last four years and offers a critical analysis of their transformation. We use the intersecting concepts of political and cultural capabilities to argue how arts-based participation in civic spaces has enabled them to shift the power balances, fostering them as epistemic agents and change-makers. Their journey across three arts and heritage workshops sh…
Multidimensional disadvantages and educational aspirations of marginalised migrant youth: Insights from the Global South
This article provides a Global South perspective on marginalised migrant youth and higher educational aspirations, with a specific focus on South Africa. We use data from a case study in Johannesburg to illustrate how marginalised migrant youth experience particular forms of disadvantage in their endeavours to realise their educational aspirations. Yet, educational opportunities and the achievement of educational aspirations may enhance dimension…
Challenges in accessing higher education: A case study of marginalised young people in one South African informal settlement
Capabilities expansion for marginalised migrant youths in Johannesburg: The case of Albert Street School
In this article, we used the capability approach as normative grounding to analyse a particular faith-based intervention targeting ‘youth at the margins’ – in this instance, marginalised migrant youths from Zimbabwe living in Johannesburg, South Africa. We used Albert Street School (AS School), run by Johannesburg’s Central Methodist Church, as our case study to show how this faith-based organisation, through its focus on education, created not o…
Youth, Gender and the Capabilities Approach to Development: Rethinking Opportunities and Agency from a Human Development Perspective
Youth, Gender and the Capabilities Approach to Development: Rethinking Opportunities and Agency from a Human Development Perspective." Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 20(1), pp. 117–118
Multidimensional disadvantages and educational aspirations of marginalised migrant youth: Insights from the Global South
This article provides a Global South perspective on marginalised migrant youth and higher educational aspirations, with a specific focus on South Africa. We use data from a case study in Johannesburg to illustrate how marginalised migrant youth experience particular forms of disadvantage in their endeavours to realise their educational aspirations. Yet, educational opportunities and the achievement of educational aspirations may enhance dimension…
Contextualising Youth Migration and Education
Migrant Stories: A Picture of Youth Migration in Southern Africa
Capabilities and Barriers to Higher Education Aspirations Formation for Marginalised Migrants
Education, Migration and Development: Looking Beyond the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
Understanding Migrants Valued Capabilities and Functionings
Higher Educational Aspirations Formation in Contexts of Disadvantage
Education, Youth and Migration from a Capability Lens
An Intersectional Analysis of Capabilities, Conversion Factors and Aspirations
Higher Education, Youth and Migration in Contexts of Disadvantage: Understanding Aspirations and Capabilities
Participatory action research: Towards (non-ideal) epistemic justice in a university in South Africa
The paper explores the possibilities for promoting epistemic justice in a South African university setting through a participatory action-based photovoice research project in which university researchers worked alongside undergraduate students with no prior experience of doing research. The student voices are employed to understand how learning as capability development and agency expansion can advance epistemic justice in a university setting of…
Migration at Work: Aspirations, Imaginaries & Structures of Mobility
Migration and Labour Mobility\nThe willingness to migrate in search of employment is in itself insufficient to compel anyone to move. The dynamics of labour mobility are heavily influenced by the opportunities perceived and the imaginaries held by both employers and regulating authorities in relation to migrant labour. This volume offers a multidisciplinary approach to the study of the structures and imaginaries underlying various forms of mobili…
From Streets to Developing Aspirations: How Does Collective Agency for Education Change Marginalised Migrant Youths' Lives
This paper provides an account of migrant youths’ experiences of access to education through a social initiative-driven school and highlights how these youths developed pathways of aspirations to work for the good of the community. In doing so, the paper also provides a lens to the issues of migration in Southern Africa and a context in which to understand how collective action (agency) for education can deeply transform marginalised migrants’ as…
Post-Conflict Participatory Arts
Out-of-school girls’ lives in Zimbabwe: What can we learn from a storytelling research approach
This paper focuses on the experiences of out-of-school girls in Zimbabwe. It draws on a research strand of SAGE (Supporting Adolescent Girls’ Education), a UKAid programme funded through the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office’s (FCDO) Girls’ Education Challenge (GEC) initiative. Using a digital storytelling approach the research highlights critical events that have changed girls’ lives and impacted on how they see their futures. The pap…
Becoming a Teacher: The Liminal Identities and Political Agency of Refugee Teachers
This paper engages with the experiences of refugee teachers through an identity-based conceptualisation of the capability approach to explore these teachers’ social environment, working conditions, values, and lived experiences. The research builds on the teachers’ capabilities literature to argue that norms, dynamics, and identities shape their political agency, opportunities, and constraints, providing nuanced understandings of their experience…
Transformative youth development through heritage projects: Connecting Political, Creative, and Cultural Capabilities
This article draws on our continuous artistic engagement with Tonga youth in Zimbabwe over the last four years and offers a critical analysis of their transformation. We use the intersecting concepts of political and cultural capabilities to argue how arts-based participation in civic spaces has enabled them to shift the power balances, fostering them as epistemic agents and change-makers. Their journey across three arts and heritage workshops sh…
Exploring an alternative access route to higher education in South Africa: A human development and social justice analysis
Widening access to higher education is one of the key policy priorities for many countries and institutions globally. While the concern has been to increase the number of young people entering university, there has also been interest in the diversity of people entering university, such as women, working students, and those from rural communities. This paper builds on that body of knowledge by combining ideas from the capability approach and socia…
Working as facilitators and co-researchers: Opportunities, tensions and complexities in educational participatory research
In this paper, we transcend the boundaries of conventional academic writing and embrace the African philosophical concept of conversationalism to create an honest and decolonial space, albeit imperfect, in which we can talk about the messiness of participatory research. Engaging in a dialectical conversation with each other, we share our reflections on and respond to four lines of questioning related to: onto-epistemology; axiology; methodology; …
Internationalization at a distance via virtual mobility in the Global South: Advances and challenges
Internationalization of higher education (HE) has increasingly been a subject of interest among scholars, due to developments in the field, such as increased student and staff mobility, inter‐university research and teaching partnerships, and rapid technological advancements. Internationalization efforts have mainly focused on the recruitment of international students and staff to universities in the Global North, the establishment of satellite c…
Weaving Heritage: The Narrative Capabilities and Herstories of Tonga Women
This paper is positioned within critical African heritage studies and looks into the process of storytelling with the Tonga artist community in Zimbabwe, for whom heritage has long been a contested space due to historical exclusion from self-narration. The research is based on participatory art research with eight Tonga women and four artists, aiming to strengthen local art skills and advocate for the recognition of Tonga heritage within broader …
Ecological Heritage and Relational Informal Learning for Youth Development in Southern Africa
This paper situates itself at the nexus of youth development and ecological heritage in Southern Africa, critically engaging with enduring challenges such as unemployment, poverty, and the gradual erosion of cultural identity. It examines the potential of Moringa oleifera as a key ecological resource for fostering sustainable livelihoods and reinforcing localised ecological and cultural heritage. Drawing on participatory methodologies including i…
Sociology (21 works) · Political science (17 works) · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare (13 works) · Gender Studies (12 works) · Social science (10 works) · Geography (9 works) · Pedagogy (8 works) · Economic growth (7 works) · Global Educational Policies and Reforms (7 works) · Economics (6 works)