Academic Profile 

MSc in Environmental & Geographical Science with distinction (University of Cape Town), BSc Honours in Environmental & Geographical Science awarded in the first class (University of Cape Town), BSc in Environmental & Geographical Science (University of Cape Town)

I joined the department as an academic in 2025 after completing a Fulbright Fellowship in Minnesota. My interest in academic was cultivated by Professor Maano Ramutsindela who first taught me in 2015. His work which is rooted in political ecology grounded my focus on spatial justice. My own work interrogates the mechanisms by which property relations remain racialised post-independence in former colonies. I do this by analysing South Africa’s land policy and practices through the lens of spatial justice. I draw from case studies in mining, nature conservation and agriculture. Pedagogically, my work is rooted in Black Geographies which aims to centre the Black spatial imaginaries and the Black experience in space. 

Current Teaching

I teach a module in the first-year course on Human and Physical Systems as well as a module on Geographies of Landscapes in the second-year course titled Geographies Across Space. 

Research Interests 

• Land reform in South Africa
• Property relations in Southern Africa post-1994
• South Africa’s agricultural history and transformation in South Africa post-1994
• South Africa’s wine industry 

Publications 

• Ntombini, K. 2023. Contesting Control over the Namaqualand Landscape through Property. In The Lower !Garib – Orange River: Past and Presents of a Southern African Border Region. L. Lenggenhager, M. Akwa, G, Miescher, R. Nghitevelekwa & N.I. Sinthumule. Eds. DOI:10.14361/9783839466391-016. Link: https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839466391-016