Wits Centenary Fellowship to the GCRO

Image 1: Dr Aidan Mosselson (Credit: Graeme Götz)

Dr Aidan Mosselson will be visiting the GCRO between now (November 2023) and the end of February 2024. His visit is facilitated by the Wits Centenary Fellowship, in partnership with the University of Edinburgh. This fellowship was part of the 2022 Wits Centennial celebrations. It is also part of an ongoing relationship between Wits and the University of Edinburgh. For fellowship opportunities hosted by the University of Edinburgh, available to Wits staff only, see here.

During his visit, Mosselson will be focusing on research related to The Politics and Possibilities of Green/Sustainability Transitions in Gauteng. The project aims to examine the types of governance practice that emerge in pursuit of sustainability transitions, the visions informing sustainability initiatives, and the implications these have for social justice and inclusion. The objective of the research is to examine how sustainability is understood and realised in governance and planning practices. Sustainability transitions require states that can govern in innovative ways, juggling competing priorities and managing complex social partnerships. The research will examine the governance arrangements, practices and actions that are assembled to realise a form of green transition and the types of sustainability that emerge through these, and the impacts these have on various communities residing in the GCR.

Mosselson is a Chancellor’s Fellow in the Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (ESALA) and Lecturer at the Edinburgh Futures Institute, University of Edinburgh. Mosselson completed his PhD in Social Geography at University College London in 2015. He held a Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, hosted jointly between the University of Johannesburg and the Gauteng City-Region Observatory, between 2016 and 2017 and was awarded an International Fellowship by the Urban Studies Foundation which supported a stint as a Visiting Fellow at LSE Cities between November 2017 and April 2018. Prior to joining ESALA, he was a Newton International Fellow based in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, University of Sheffield.