Aaron Chando

My research interests are in the cultural production of precarity and spaces of exclusion in the Global South, particularly in Southern Africa. I am specifically interested in the political function of vulnerability in various sites of displacement, especially where notional understandings of difference become central to the politics of belonging and knowledge production. Specialising in literary studies, I recognise African creative artists as social thinkers and cultural innovators and reaffirm African literary imagination and cultural production as major sites where critical social issues are addressed and reimagined. Therefore, my primary interest is in how creative artists deploy politico-aesthetic tools to illuminate the beauties and subjectivities that exist in society’s margins. In the process, I establish connecting threads among different manifestations of precarity – ecological, biophysical, economic, aesthetic, discursive, epistemological, et cetera. Beyond the need to offer an alternative grammar for exploring the dynamics of disempowerment and the resultant politics of refusal, I seek to promote transdisciplinary conversations among topics that are often examined in isolation.  

My interest in the literary representation of precarity in Southern Africa builds on my doctoral thesis – ‘Precarious spaces: intersections of gendered identity and violence in Zimbabwean literature’ – that examined how a cross-section of Zimbabwean creative writers use narrative means to reimagine the nation by deconstructing gendered cultural practices that produce and sustain precarity. The thesis postulated that precarity is ideologically produced at the intersections of gendered identities and institutionalised forms of violence such as ethnonationalism, heteropatriarchal policing, ableism, homophobia, and misogyny. It made a case for space-bound understandings of precarity that recognise Zimbabwean textual nuances and environmental specificities. My current research focus adopts a regional approach and ropes in diverse themes such as precarious urbanisms, precaritising legal cultures, predatory epistemologies, and fragile ecologies.    

I have had several teaching assignments at the tertiary level. As a Teaching Assistant at the University of the Witwatersrand (South Africa), I developed and taught elective courses in postcolonialism and satire (2019-2021). I also served in the university’s Academic Development Unit (ADU), where I taught critical thinking to first-year engineering and accounting students. From 2022 to 2023, I conducted a series of seminars on ‘Precarity and spaces of exclusion in the Global South’ at Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen (Germany), under the Tübingen Doctoral Certificate Programme.  

I am currently a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Sol Plaatje University (South Africa) where, in addition to research work, I help oversee the initiatives and strategic vision of the institution’s Centre for Creative Writing and African Languages.  

Publications 

• Chando, Aaron (2022). ‘The Albinic Body and the Architecture of Resilience in Ben Hanson’s Takadini and Petina Gappah’s The Book of Memory’. Scrutiny2, 26(2–3): pp. 36–53. DOI: 10.1080/18125441.2022.2089216.   
• Chando, Aaron. (2023). ‘Precarious discourses: herstory and the politics of re-articulation in Panashe Chigumadzi’s These Bones Will Rise Again’. African Identities, DOI: 10.1080/14725843.2023.2251701.   

Awards and Funding 

• University of the Witwatersrand Faculty of Humanities New Ph.D. Publication  

Grant (ZAR 25, 000) (2022). 

• University of the Witwatersrand Faculty of Humanities PhD Midcycle Grant  

(ZAR 25, 000) (2021). 

• Harold and Doris Tothill English Scholarship (ZAR 17, 000) (2021). 
• Harold and Doris Tothill English Scholarship (ZAR 10, 000) (2020). 
• University of the Witwatersrand Postgraduate Merit Award (2021). 
• University of the Witwatersrand Postgraduate Merit Award (2020). 
• University of the Witwatersrand Postgraduate Merit Award (2019). 
• Great Zimbabwe University Book Prize (2018). 
• The Great Zimbabwe University Vice Chancellor’s Award (2018). 

Qualifications 

• PhD in English Studies, University of the Witwatersrand, 2022. 
• Master of Arts Literary Studies, Great Zimbabwe University, 2018.   
• Bachelor of Arts Honours in English, University of Zimbabwe, 2000. 
• Doctoral Certificate in Global South Studies, University of Tübingen, 2023.   
• Certificate of Participation as a Lecturer, University of Tübingen, 2023.   
• Teaching Skills Certificate, University of Tübingen, 2022.  
• Peer Review Certificate, Taylor & Francis, 2022.  
• Postgraduate diploma in Education, Zimbabwe Open University, 2016.