27 December 2024
The Society Work and Politics institute mourns the loss of our beloved colleague, friend and director, Prishani Naidoo. The magnitude of this loss is incomprehensible at this moment; we will have much more to say, in time. Prishani’s place in our lives was far greater than that of a colleague. She changed how we, as a different generation of scholars, think and showed us how we can exist, produce and shape knowledge in ways that might help us imagine alternatives.
From her time as a student and student leader Prishani fought for a different vision of the university and wider society. She carried with her a belief in forming spaces of equality, community, discussion and disagreement. Many of us knew Prishani not only as a brilliant scholar but also as a long-standing activist committed to the work of reimagining and experimentation. As director, she focused on building what she called research communities and created a space for intellectual freedom, not just for us as her colleagues at SWOP, but also for the many students who interacted with her. She led with calmness, grace, and generosity and engaged with a great sense of care. For us, work felt like home.
Prishani was generous and expansive in her thinking and critique. Her intellectual interests were rooted in and through her broader engagements in movements, political organisations and various collectives. Prishani had been completing her book “The Subject of Poverty: Policy, Protest and Politics in South Africa after 1994”, and was deeply invested in the possibility of different political imaginaries and other ways to organise life. When Prishani came into her position at SWOP, she worked to reshape and rethink the intellectual trajectory of the institute, bringing in the theme of Land, Labour, and Life. The program epitomised her ability to think together across subjects and disciplines that have traditionally been separated, seeing the potential of different paths and windows to unravelling what has been and become, what is, and what is yet, to come.
Prishani frequently referred to ‘memory and inheritance’. Her presence and importance in our lives mean that we could never have imagined that we would be using these terms, that we would have to re-member Prishani. It is hard to imagine our work now without her but we will work to keep her vision, values and her fight alive. When we re-member Prishani, it will be because she taught us how.
Prishani is survived by her partner, Ahmed Veriava, her parents, Dilly and Poonie, and her sisters, Sunushka and Kalnisha. Prishani spoke often with so much love and pride about her nephews, Akhil, Kiran and Xolani. Our love and condolences go out to her family, comrades, friends and everyone who loved her.
Lucinda Becorny, Dineo Skosana, Tasneem Essop, Simon Gush, Lesego Loate, Niren Tolsi and Kim Johaar.