Sibanengi Ncube

Biography

Dr. Sibanengi Ncube specialises in the economic and social history of Southern Africa with a focus on commodities. He is currently a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Arts at Walter Sisulu University, South Africa, a position he has held since January 2025. His research explores the global, regional and local dynamics of commodities and their histories, with a particular focus on the tobacco industry.

He holds a PhD in African Studies (History) from the University of the Free State (2019), an MA in African Economic History (2016), and a BA Honours degree in Economic History (2011) from the University of Zimbabwe.

His scholarly contributions have earned him several prestigious awards, including a Visiting Research Fellowship at the University of Cambridge (2026), a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Oppenheimer Memorial Trust (2023), and fellowships from the University of the Free State and the American Council of Learned Societies’ African Humanities Program.

An accomplished researcher, Dr. Ncube is the author of Politics, Profits and Protection: Zimbabwe’s Tobacco Industry since 1947 (2022), published by NISC Publishers. He has also published widely in leading international journals. His work advances understanding of colonial and postcolonial economic transformation, agriculture, and global commodity networks in Africa. Through his research, teaching, and publications, Dr. Ncube continues to make significant contributions to African historical scholarship and the study of Southern Africa’s past and present.

Project Information

Project Title: Africa’s Entanglements in Global Cancer Control: Imperial Health Systems, Knowledge Circulation, and Local Agency in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), c. 1950s–1970s

My project examines how the Cancer Association of Rhodesia (CAR) interacted with British and international cancer-control initiatives during the 1950s-1970s. It explores the circulation of medical knowledge, institutional collaboration, and policy exchange, highlighting how cancer control emerged within wider imperial and global health networks, including links with the World Health Organization and the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC). In doing so, it seeks to cast light on the ways in which colonial and transnational health networks connected Rhodesia to Britain and the wider world.

Key research questions focus on the institutional linkages between Rhodesian, imperial, and global cancer initiatives, and how international cancer-control strategies were adapted to local political, racial, and epidemiological contexts.

The fellowship will generate two major outputs: a grant application to the Wellcome Trust Humanities and Social Science Fund and a journal article provisionally titled “Imperial Cancer Networks: Knowledge Circulation and Local Agency in Rhodesia, c. 1950s–1979,” targeted for submission to Medical History. The fellowship will be mentored by Professor Sanjoy Bhattacharya of the University of Leeds. His internationally recognised expertise in global health histories, international medical programmes, and the development of global health systems provides an ideal intellectual framework for the project.