Christi van der Westhuizen

Christi Van der Westhuizen is an Associate Professor heading up the Research Programme at the Centre for the Advancement of Non-Racialism and Democracy (CANRAD), Nelson Mandela University, South Africa. She was a Visiting Professor at the Institute of African Studies and the Research Centre Global Dynamics at Leipzig University, Germany, in 2022-3. Previously she worked as an Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Pretoria. As a transdisciplinary scholar interested in ideology and the mobilisation of identity and difference in colonial and postcolonial contexts, with a focus on South Africa, Prof Van der Westhuizen has published widely, both academically and popularly. She is the co-editor of the Routledge International Handbook of Critical Studies in Whiteness (2022) and the author of two monographs, White Power & the Rise and Fall of the National Party (2007) and Sitting Pretty: White Afrikaans Women in Postapartheid South Africa (2017). Prof Van der Westhuizen’s book chapters have been published by a range of academic presses, including most recently Bristol University Press, and her articles have appeared in journals such as Africa Today, African Studies, Critical Philosophy of Race, and Matatu Journal for African Culture and Society. She has held associateships with several universities and received her Doctorate in Sociology from the University of Cape Town. Her media columns and analysis have featured in both South African and global news outlets.