Shahid holds the Archie Mafeje Chair in Critical Humanities and Decoloniality at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. He was previously Head of the department of Anthropology at the Universities of Durban-Westville and Witwatersrand, and Head of the School of Social Science at the University of Witwatersrand. He also worked in the trade union and NGO movements. Shahid graduated from the universities of Durban-Westville (B.A.), Queens (Belfast)(M.A.) and KwaZulu-Natal (Ph.D.).