Professor Siona O’Connell (PhD) is an African Studies scholar/practitioner in the School of the Arts at the University of Pretoria. Her research focus falls within three areas, that of Memory Studies, Creative Studies and Restorative Justice in postcolonial and post-apartheid South Africa. She is widely respected for her work on the effects of race-based land dispossession. Her co-edited book, ‘Hanging on a Wire’ won the 2018 National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) Humanities and Social award for the best non-fiction edited volume and her monograph on forced removals in Cape Town, “An Impossible Return: Cape Town’s Forced Removals” continues to garner broad recommendations.

Watch the Ballie Boys short film here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhlThBeCMG0&t=610s