The University of KwaZulu-Natal’s (UKZN), Master of Commerce in Leadership Studies student Mr Lungelani Luthuli says being awarded a Rick Turner Scholarship comes with the responsibility to live up to the academic excellence legacy set by the prolific South African academic.
Said Luthuli: “After my master’s degree at UKZN, I plan to enter special-interest politics and serve on bargaining councils, and civil society sectors. This scholarship serves as a catalyst for me to engage in a civic life grounded in human agency and participation as Rick Turner advocated.”
The Rick Turner scholarship is awarded to excellent postgraduate students in the broad disciplines of Politics and Labour Studies, who also exhibit a depth of community engagement.
Luthuli is a volunteer at Ezanqaweni Community Trust – a farm that was expropriated with compensation and handed over to a local community – the Ingome Tribal Authority in uMsinga, KwaZulu-Natal.
“I was born and bred in uMsinga, one of the most rural parts of the province and have benefitted from social development services such as free education from primary to tertiary level and free public healthcare,” said Luthuli. “This is why I have been a student and a volunteer at Ezanqaweni Community Trust and a participant in activities as they occurred in the tribal council. I am also a member of youth structures in local schools and communities which include minutes-writing, data collecting and fundraisings,” he said.
The aspiring civic advocate and leader, who serves as a tutor in UKZN’s School of Commerce and School of Social Sciences, is in the process of developing a research proposal on the political economy of land in the digital world, as well as alternative financing mechanisms for post-land reform and the land economy.
“I want to inquire about the potential that digital currencies, and a fundraising digital platform, can have on supplementing state funding after land reform, especially in KwaZulu-Natal since it is a special case with regards to the politics of land. These issues include a proposed AI data centre in Amanzimtoti and the existence of land under the Ingonyama Trust Board,” said Luthuli.
Words: Thandiwe Jumo
Photograph: Supplied