Biography: Nicole Elsie Nonhlanhla Sithole is a Zimbabwean who attained a Master’s in Social Science History from the Department of Historical and Heritage Studies at the University of Pretoria, South Africa. She has worked as a tutor and teaching assistant in this department and as a contract lecturer in the Unit of Academic Literacy and Research Assistant in the Department of Psychology at the University of Pretoria. Her research interests include gender and transport histories, and she is fascinated by the interplay between the current lived realities of subaltern societies and their representation, misrepresentation, and exclusion from colonial archives. Nicole believes that postcolonial cities’ current structures and functioning are rooted in historical processes and that critically engaging with these processes is an important part of making cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.
Research Topic: Tracking between the ‘city of kings’ and the ‘city of gold’. The train, migration and African Women in Bulawayo and Johannesburg c.1965 and 1994.