Lerato Thakholi

Dr Lerato Thakholi is Senior Researcher in the Living Landscapes in Action Project and a Lecturer at Wageningen University and Research. In the past 9 years, Lerato has used conservation as a lens to understand how property and labour regimes are configured in Southern Africa. Themes that are central to her work include: spatial justice, labour, race, production of space, commodification of natures and social reproduction.

The latter has become increasingly central in her work in the Greater Mapungubwe landscape where a claimant communities capacity to reproduce itself is increasingly being undermined by various external forces including the expansion of a national park and exploitative labour dynamics on neighbouring commercial farms.

Her PhD thesis was on ‘Conserving Inequality: Subjugating black labour by accumulating and defending property in South Africa’s private nature reserves’.