Venolia Rabodiba

Venolia Rabodiba is an Anthropology PhD candidate enthralled by how the spectacularity of infrastructure is called on to deliver political and economic futures after (post)colonialism in Southern Africa. Instead of a techno-politics approach that seeks to illuminate the oft imperceptible politics embedded in and produced by infrastructural and mega ‘development’ projects, she considers what effects are produced by the deliberate instrumentalization of infrastructure in the political. Her PhD research thus concerns itself with the redistribution of political responsibility from governments, institutions, and other arbiters of political futures to the material world.

Before coming to Stanford, she completed a BA Honours in Geography at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. Venolia left the program with the Stanley P. Jackson medal awarded to the top student in the either the Faculty of Humanities or Sciences. Her honours research focused on the memorialization of liberation ideals in South Africa in relation to the materiality of freedom. This work was supported by the Department of Science and Technology and the National Research Foundation, A.W. Mellon Foundation, and an internal postgraduate merit award.