Research Profile

I am currently the lead investigator in the NRF African Origins Project titled: The Remembrance Project. The aims of the project have been to reengage and invigorate the relationship between Khoesan communities and archaeological researchers. Based in the Cederberg region of South Africa, the project has implemented a community based participatory method as a means of interrogating the methods often employed by archaeologists in community project. Further to this, we have worked with the community to create digital maps that link the heritage of the area with the contemporary and historical memory.

Additionally, I am a historical archaeologist, whose doctoral research was based on the 19th century corbelled houses of the Karoo. My research primarily built on the work done by Kramer (2012) and completed the first excavation linked to a corbelled house complex (see Lupuwana 2021). I am interested in the intersections identity have with the social, economic and political context.

Finally, I trained in film production and I have been working on a documentary film based in the Cederberg with the Khoekhoen and San descendants on their heritage and the continuity of that heritage in the present.