Jane Bennett (feminist scholar)

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Jane Bennett is a feminist scholar and a professor at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Since 2009 she has worked at UCT, where she serves as a Professor and the Director of the School of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics (SAGSA). She previously directed the African Gender Institute at UCT.

Education and background
Bennett holds a BA from the University of Natal, and both an MPhil and an EdD from Columbia University. Her academic work spans linguistics, literature, sociology and feminist theory.

Career and leadership
In 2012, the School of African and Gender Studies, Anthropology and Linguistics was created by merging four departments: the African Gender Unit, the Centre for African Studies, the Department of Social Anthropology, and the Department of Linguistics. Bennett led the English Department at UCT from 2016 to 2018 on secondment. She is now the Director of Postgraduate Studies and the Deputy Dean of Humanities for Staffing and IT at UCT.

Feminist scholarship and activism
Bennett’s work explores how feminist research and activism relate, especially in Africa. She emphasizes the challenge of separating personal experience from academic research. She also leads and participates in programs that promote sexual and reproductive rights and is involved with the Feminist Africa Journal.

Collaboration
In 2004, Bennett co-edited Jacketed Women: Qualitative Research Methodologies on Sexualities and Gender in Africa with Charmaine Pereira. Pereira is an associated scholar who shares an interest in how culture, gender, sexuality, law and religion intersect in research.