Mbongiseni Buthelezi

Mbongiseni Buthelezi is the Chief Executive Officer of the Nelson Mandela Foundation and a former Associate Professor of Anthropology and Development Studies at the University of Johannesburg. His research focuses on studying land, governance and the state in South Africa. He is interested in trajectories of land reform, the role of traditional authorities in land governance, the study of institutions of the state, as well as on corruption and state capture. He explores how we can think with pre-colonial pasts to forge decolonial futures in areas ranging from identity and archives to governance and state building. Mbongiseni holds a PhD in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University in New York. His most recent co-edited publication with Peter Vale is State Capture in South Africa: How and Why it Happened (2023, Wits University Press).