Thandiwe Matthews is a South African attorney and doctoral candidate forming part of a joint scholarship programme between the University of the Witwatersrand (under the South African Research Chair in Law, Equality and Social Justice), and the International Institute of Social Studies of Erasmus University Rotterdam. Her research explores the role of constitutionally protected human rights to address (intersectional) structural inequalities of race, gender, class and age in post-1994 South Africa, with a specific focus on the right to social protection. Her academic interests lie in analysing the relationship between human rights, governance, the economy and society, and her work has been published in the Oxford Journal of Human Rights Practice, the South African Journal on Human Rights and Development Southern Africa. During her research visit at SDU, she intends to develop her analysis of contemporary global debates surrounding the viability of a permanent and universal basic income grant (UBIG) as a human right in South Africa. More than an assessment of the affordability of a state-funded UBIG, her research interest is centred on how a UBIG may contribute toward the advancement of substantive equality for young black South African women who experience particular vulnerabilities as a result of the intersection of their race, gender, class and age.
Read more about Thandiwe here.