ACADEMIC PROFILE:
DLitt, University of Natal, 2002
Professor of Sociology at Stellenbosch since 2006 and DST/NRF Research Chair in the Sociology of Land, Environment and Sustainable Development (from 2016) – see www.cosmopolitankaroo.co.za
Ongoing Interests: Social-ecological change in the Karoo; land restitution and land reform; environmental sociology; rural development; social identity; gender studies.
- PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
DST/NRF South African Research Chair in the Sociology of Land, Environment and Sustainable Development, Stellenbosch University (1 January 2016 – ).
Professor of Sociology (1 December 2005 – 31 December 2015)
Head of Department, 1 Jan 2006 – 31 Dec 2010
Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Stellenbosch University.
Chief Research Specialist; Research Director (October 2003 – July 2005)
Human Sciences Research Council, Durban office, South Africa.
Independent researcher & consultant (2000 – 2003)
Durban, South Africa.
Regional Land Claims Commissioner: KwaZulu-Natal (March 1995 – April 2000)
Commission on Restitution of Land Rights, Pretoria, South Africa.
Lecturer; Senior Lecturer; Head of Department (April 1989 – March 1995)
Sociology Department, University of Natal, Durban, South Africa.
Independent researcher and writer (part-time) (May 1987 – March 1989)
Durban, South Africa.
Researcher (August 1986 – April 1987)
Albany Black Sash, Grahamstown, South Africa.
Affiliated Scholar (September 1984 – June 1986)
Center for Research on Women, Stanford University, Stanford, USA.
Canvasser; Community Coordinator (part-time) (November 1984 – May 1986)
Citizens for a Better Environment, San Francisco, USA.
Organiser (March 1980 – April 1983)
Association for Rural Advancement (AFRA), Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.
Natal Convenor, Surplus People Project, South Africa.
Rural Development Worker (1979)
Church Agricultural Projects (CAP), Weenen, South Africa.
English Teacher (1975)
Bridgetown High School, Cape Town, South Africa.
- TERTIARY EDUCATION
D.Litt. University of Natal, South Africa, 2002.
M.A. University of Cape Town, South Africa, 1978, with distinction.
BA Honours, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 1974, first-class.
BA, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 1972, distinction in History.
- PUBLICATIONS
- Hoffman MT, Cowling RM, Petersen H, Walker C. Karoo research update: Progress, gaps and threats. South African Journal of Science,17(1/2). doi.org/10.17159/ .
- Chinigò, Davide and Cherryl Walker. Science, astronomy and sacrifice zones; development trade-offs and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope project in South Africa. Social Dynamics, pp.391-413.
Books and research monographs
Cousins, Ben and Cherryl Walker (eds.), 2015. Land Divided, Land Restored; Land Reform in South Africa for the 21st Century. Johannesburg: Jacana Media, 320pp.
Walker, Cherryl, Anna Bohlin, Ruth Hall and Thembela Kepe (eds.), 2010. Land, Memory, Reconstruction and Justice: Perspectives on Land Claims in South Africa. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press and Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 335pp.
Walker, Cherryl, 2008. Landmarked. Land Claims and Land Restitution in South Africa. Johannesburg: Jacana Media and Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 292pp.
Swaminathan, Hema, Cherryl Walker and Margaret Rugadya, (eds), 2008. Women’s Property Rights, HIV and AIDS and Domestic Violence. Research findings from two districts in South Africa and Uganda. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 176pp.
Walker, Cherryl, Michael Aliber, Mumbi Machera, Paul Kamau, Charles Omondi, Karuti Kanyinga, 2004. The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Land Rights: Case Studies from Kenya. Cape Town: HSRC Press, 214pp.
Walker, Cherryl, 1991. Women and Resistance in South Africa, 2nd edition, with a new introduction. Cape Town: David Philip and New York: Monthly Review Press. (First published 1982, London: Onyx Press), 309pp.
Walker, Cherryl (ed.), 1990, (Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945. Cape Town: David Philip; London: James Currey; Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 390pp.
Platzky, Laurine and Cherryl Walker, 1985. The Surplus People. Johannesburg: Ravan Press, 446pp.
The Surplus People Project, 1983. Forced Removals in South Africa: The SPP Reports. Cape Town: Surplus People Project. Overall editor and primary author of Volume 1, Introduction, 120pp, and Volume 4, Natal, 572pp.
Journal articles since 2005
Hoffman MT, Cowling RM, Petersen H, Walker C. 2021. Karoo research update: Progress, gaps and threats. South African Journal of Science,17(1/2). doi.org/10.17159/
Chinigò, Davide and Cherryl Walker, 2020. Science, astronomy and sacrifice zones; development trade-offs and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope project in South Africa. Social Dynamics, pp.391-413.
Walker, Cherryl, 2019. Cosmopolitan Karoo: Land, Space & Place in the Shadow of the Square Kilometre Array. Journal of Southern African Studies, 45(4), pp641-662.
Walker, Cherryl, Davide Chinigò and Saul Dubow, 2019. Karoo Futures: Astronomy in Space and Place – Introduction. Special issue on Karoo Futures – Astronomy in Space and Place, Journal of Southern African Studies, 45(4), pp 627-639.
Walker, Cherryl, Sue Milton, Tim O’Connell, Richard Dean and Judy Maguire, 2018. Drivers and Trajectories of Social and Ecological Change in the Karoo, South Africa. African Journal of Range and Forage Science, 35(3-4), pp157-177.
Henschel, Joh R, M Timm Hoffman and Cherryl Walker (eds), 2018. Karoo Special Issue: Trajectories of Change in the Anthropocene. African Journal of Range & Forage Science, 35(3-4).
Hoffman, M Timm, Cherryl Walker and Joh R Henschel, 2018. Reflections on the Karoo Special Issue: towards an interdisciplinary research agenda for South Africa’s drylands. African Journal of Range and Forage Science, 35(3-4), pp387-393.
Walker, Cherryl and Davide Chinigò, 2018. Disassembling the Square Kilometre Array: Astronomy and Development in South Africa. Third World Quarterly, pp1979-1997.
Walker, Cherryl, 2014. Critical Reflections on South Africa’s 1913 Natives’ Land Act and its Legacies: Introduction. Part-special issue, ‘Reflections on the 1913 Land Act and its Legacies, 1913 – 2013’, edited by Shula Marks and Cherryl Walker, Journal of Southern African Studies, 40(4), pp. 655-665.
Walker, Cherryl, 2013. Commemorating or Celebrating? Reflections on the Centenary of the Natives Land Act of 1913. Social Dynamics, 39(2), pp. 282-289.
Walker, Cherryl, 2013. Uneasy Relations: Women, Gender Equality and Tradition. Thesis 11, (115), pp. 77-94.
Walker, Cherryl, 2012. Finite Land: Challenges Institutionalising Land Restitution in South Africa, 1995-2000. Journal of Southern African Studies, 38(4), pp. 809-826.
Walker, Cherryl, 2009. Elusive Equality: Women, Property Rights and Land Reform in South Africa. South African Journal on Human Rights, 26(3), pp.467-490.
Walker, Cherryl, 2009. Interview with LS, Cremin, South Africa. Journal of Peasant Studies, 36(2), pp. 453-458.
Walker, Cherryl, 2008. Land Claims, Land Conservation and the Public Interest in Protected Areas. South African Review of Sociology, 39(2), pp. 232-244.
Aliber, Michael and Cherryl Walker, 2006. The Impact of HIV/AIDS on Land Rights; Perspectives from Kenya. World Development, 34(4), pp. 704-727.
Walker, Cherryl, 2005. The Limits to Land Reform; Rethinking ‘the Land Question’. Journal of Southern African Studies, 31(4), pp. 805-824.
Walker, Cherryl, 2005. Women, Gender Policy and Land Reform in South Africa. Politikon, 32(3), pp. 297-315..
Walker, Cherryl, 2005. Misplaced Agrarianization? Reflections on Ten Years of Land Restitution. Social Research, 72(3), pp. 647-670.
Book chapters and other academic publications since 2005
Walker, Cherryl, 2017. The Land Question in South Africa: 1913 and Beyond. In Thomas Spear (ed.), Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History. Oxford: Oxford University Press, http://africanhistory.oxfordre.com/page/recently-published/
Walker, Cherryl. 2016. Does it matter? Reflections on twenty years of land reform. In Arrigo Pallotti and Ulf Engel (eds.), South Africa after Apartheid: Policies and Challenges of the Democratic Transition. Leiden: Brill, pp. 153-172.
Walker, Cherryl and Ben Cousins, 2015. Land Divided, Land Restored: Introduction. In Ben Cousins and Cherryl Walker (eds.), Land Divided, Land Restored; Land Reform in South Africa for the 21st Century. Johannesburg: Jacana Media, pp. 1-16.
Walker, Cherryl, 2015. Sketch Map to the Future: Restitution Unbound. In Ben Cousins and Cherryl Walker (eds.), Land Divided, Land Restored; Land Reform in South Africa for the 21st Century. Johannesburg: Jacana Media, pp. 236-254.
Walker, Cherryl, 2014. Uneasy Relations: Women, Gender Equality and Tradition. In Peter Vale & Estelle Prinsloo (eds.), The ‘New’ South Africa at Twenty; Critical Perspectives. Pietermaritzburg: UKZN Press, pp 207-230.
Walker, Cherryl, 2011. Elusive Equality: Women, Property Rights and Land Reform in South Africa. In Beth Goldblatt and Kirsty McLean (eds.), Women’s Social and Economic Rights: Developments in South Africa. Cape Town: Juta, pp.105-127.
Walker, Cherryl, 2011. Women’s Land Rights, Agrarian Change and Gender Transformation in Post-apartheid South Africa. In C. Verschuur (dir.), Du grain à moudre. Genre, développement rural et alimentation. Actes des colloques genre et développement. Berne: DDC-Commission Nationale Suisse pour l’UNESCO; Genève: IHEID, pp. 197-219.
Walker, Cherryl, 2010. Restitution in Default: Land Claims and the Redevelopment of Cato Manor, Durban. In Walker, Cherryl, Anna Bohlin, Ruth Hall and Thembela Kepe (eds.), 2010. Land, Memory, Reconstruction and Justice: Perspectives on Land Claims in South Africa. Athens: Ohio University Press & Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, pp. 255-272.
Walker, Cherryl, 2010. Land Claims, Land Conservation and the Public Interest in Protected Areas. In Bill Freund and Harald Witt (eds.), Development Dilemmas in Post-Apartheid South Africa. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu Natal Press, pp. 275-298.
Walker, Cherryl, 2010. Looking Forward, Looking Back: Beyond the Narrative of Loss and Restoration in the History of Land. In Michael Godby (ed.), The Lie of the Land; Representations of the South African Landscape. Cape Town: Iziko, pp. 12-27.
Walker, Cherryl, 2008. Claiming Community. In Ben Carton, John Laband and Jabulani Sithole (eds.), Zulu Identities. Pietermaritzburg: University of KwaZulu Natal Press, pp. 515-535.
Walker, Cherryl, 2008. “We are Consoled”: Reconstructing Cremin. In Alan Jeeves and Greg Cuthbertson (eds), Fragile Freedom; South African democracy 1994 – 2004. Amsterdam: Brill and Johannesburg: UNISA Press, pp186-208.
Walker, Cherryl, 2007. Redistributive Land reform: For What and for Whom. In Lungisile Ntsebeza and Ruth Hall (eds.), The Land Question in South Africa: The Challenges of Transformation. Cape Town: HSRC Press, pp. 132-151.
Walker, Cherryl, 2007. Unsettled: Re-imagining Positionality and Place. Inaugural lecture, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch. 8 May 2007, 12pp.
Walker, Cherryl, 2006. Delivery & Disarray: The Multiple Meanings of Land Restitution. In Sakhela Buhlungu, John Daniel, Roger Southall and Jessica Lutchman (eds.) State of the Nation: South Africa 2005–2006. Cape Town: HSRC Press, pp. 67-92.
- AWARDS AND PROFESSIONAL RECOGNITION SINCE 2010
Academy of Science of South Africa (ASSAF) member, 2017 –
NRF B1 rated scholar
Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence, Stellenbosch University, 2014
Rector’s Award for General Performance, Stellenbosch University, South Africa, 2013.