T. O. is a writer and editor with an affinity for transformative social research. Formerly a reporter and columnist, he has worked on editorial projects for news and media entities, publishing houses and international organisations. He has also been published in the New York Times, South Africa's Mail & Guardian, and Africa is a Country, among others, with much of his work focusing on economic and social disparities in post-apartheid South Africa.
Having recognised the need for more equitable relations and outcomes in media and publishing, T. O. is one of the founding members and serves as coordinator of Collective Media, a cooperative working to build a vibrant, democratic, equitable and self-sustaining community around the work of African writers. The cooperative is an instance of an ubuntu cooperative model that T. O. pieced together for his AFSEE Fellowship Project.
In his research, T. O. takes a decolonising approach to cooperatives and similar communally owned-and-controlled organisational forms in South Africa, with a Global South outlook. He is interested in ubu-ntu philosophy, epistemic justice, digital economy, informality, mixed-methods social network analysis, and collaborative autoethnography.
T.O. is currently a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of South Africa. He holds a Master’s degree (with distinction) in Social Policy and Development from the University of Johannesburg and a Bachelor’s in Accountancy from the University Currently Known As Rhodes.
I am inspired by theories, and by building and testing them in collaboration with people affected. Theories are powerful tools for shaping change. They can spark imagination and guide action. Theories can show us worlds beyond us, beyond here, and beyond now. There is, of course, no such thing as a safe, incorruptible theory. Promising theories must be refined and fought for — not so much for the sake of the theories themselves but for any better worlds they illuminate.T. O. Molefe