2003                Undergraduate degree, University of the Free State

         B.SOC.SC. (M.S.D.) with distinction

Subjects:

Sociology

Psychology

Criminology

Anthropology

2004                Postgraduate degree, University of the Free State

                Baccalaureus Artium Honores in Anthropology

Ant 618 – Historical/Philosophical/(Meta) Theoretical/Methodological trends

Ant 628 – Advanced study in culture

Ant 639 – Medical Anthropology

Ant 645 – Anthropology and social structures

2010                Postgraduate degree

          M.A (Anthropology)

Department of Anthropology

Dissertation: “‘n Antropologiese studie na die identiteit van vroue in Orania” (An Anthropological study of the identity of women in Orania).

Supervisor: Dr. P Esterhuyse

2004                            Free State Youth Commission                         Fieldworker

2009-2010                   Centre for Development Support (UFS)         Research Assistant

2018                            Human Sciences Research Council                Research Consultant

Blomerus, L, Juries, IK and Strauss, A. (2017)Integrating learning management systems and personal learning environment:  Learning re-imagined.  Centre for Teaching and Learning, University of the Free State.

Blomerus, L and Juries, IK. (2017) Transcending lecture venues and situating student academic well-being in student personal learning environments. Durban Central University of Technology.  HELTASA conference: Higher education well-being: Transcending boundaries, Reframing excellence.

Blomerus, L. (2018) Coming of age: A facilitator’s experiences and challenges of decolonisation in the tutorial class room.  Reflective practitioner paper: The challenge of decolonisation in first-year support. Durban Central University of Technology. SANRC conference: Toward the pursuit of excellence in national support to South Africa’s first-year students: Critically examining all aspects of the FYE.

Blomerus, L. (2018) Enhancing and extending students control, attachment, presence, and sense of ownership through innovate formative assessment.  Reflective practitioner paper: Innovative first year support initiatives. Durban Central University of Technology. SANRC conference: Toward the pursuit of excellence in national support to South Africa’s first-year students: Critically examining all aspects of the FYE.

Blomerus, L. (2018) Sinergy, fluidity, interdependency between an institutionally-structured academic learning support environment and the Personal Learning Environment of a student. Full academic paper.  Durban Central University of Technology. SANRC conference: Toward the pursuit of excellence in national support to South Africa’s first-year students Critically examining all aspects of the FYE.

Blomerus, L. (2018) I am carrying baggage, but I don’t know what I am carrying”. University of Botswana. ASnA annual conference: Movement, mobility, transformation.

Blomerus, L. (2018) Cosmopolitan scepticism:  Acknowledging the colonial ‘self’ in relation to the colonial ‘other’. Nelson Mandela University.  SAHUDA-NIHSS conference:  Leading the arts and humanities in a connected world.

Blomerus, L. (2018)Connecting the ‘dots’ between an institutionally structured academic learning support environment and the personal learning environment of a student. University of the Free State, Department of Anthropology Seminar Series: Anthropological Conversations.

Storer J, Van Den Heever, J and Blomerus, L. (2017) An elementary difficult dialogue training workshop, University of the Free State, Office of the Dean: Humanities.

Storer, J and Blomerus, L. (2018) A difficult dialogue skills session, P3 Mentors workshop. University of the Free State, Office of the Dean: Humanities.

Blomerus, L and Juries, IK. (2019) Transcending lecture venues and situating student academic well-being in student personal learning environments. Academic Facilitators Training Workshop.  University of the Free State, Office of the Dean: Humanities.

Storer, J., Bezuidenhout, J., Engelbrecht R., Nortje J., Blomerus, L., Juries, I., and Serekoane, M. (2016).  Innovation in the faculty of humanities using technology in the department of Communications Science and the Department of Anthropology. Annual Teaching and Learning Report, University of the Free State.

Given the fact that I have been extensively involved in the offering of academic learning support, some of my research interest extended to focuses on the scholarship of teaching and learning. This focus emphasise a scholarly inquiry into learning that will advance the teaching of anthropology content.  Buzzwords like “transformation”, “decolonisation” “Africanisation” and “democratisation” has been in vogue and has had tremendous impact on academic learning support structures, processes and associated delivery of discipline content.  This are, in part, attributed to intellectual movements “to change university education on the African continent” (Waghid 2017).  These have led me to the scholarly disposition of conceptual formulations related to issues of: democracy, transformative learning, cosmopolitanism, deliberation and decolonization in an attempt to enhance and further my social constructivist approach to teaching and learning.

The above research interest included scholarly inquiries to establish pedagogical interventions to enhance the department of Anthropology’s blended learning approach, as well as attempts to enhance and incorporate digital competencies with the offering of academic learning support.  In 2016 and in 2017 I was part of an Anthropology teaching assistant/academic facilitator team nominated and who entered for the annual teaching and learning innovation awards presented by the Centre for Teaching and Learning at the UFS. In 2017, we entered for the category “Student engagement and learning” with a titled entry: “Engaging to learn or learning to engage”.

The effort of the above scholarly inquiry are best conveyed by conference contributions. In 2017, I have presented at two conferences, both on a local and national level. At the local conference, hosted by the Centre for Teaching and Learning (UFS), I delivered a paper titled: “Integrating learning management systems and personal learning environment:  Learning re-imagined”.  At the national conference (presented by HELTASA at the Durban University of Technology), I delivered a paper with the title: “Transcending lecture venues and situating student academic well-being in student personal learning environments”. In May 2018, I presented three papers at the South African National Resource Centre conference in Durban. The title of the papers were: “Coming of age: A facilitator’s experiences and challenges of decolonisation in the tutorial class room”; “Enhancing and extending students control, attachment, presence, and sense of ownership through innovate formative assessment”; and “Sinergy, fluidity, interdependency between an institutionally-structured academic learning support environment and the Personal Learning Environment of a student”.  In 2019, an international conference abstract was accepted for the Seventeenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities with the title: “Machines and Their Possibilities on a Community of Practice”.

My Master’s dissertation dealt with two prominent, and currently relevant and controversial, themes in Anthropology, namely: Identity and gender. My research setting was Orania, a small rural town in the Northern Cape (South Africa), with its aim an Anthropological study to the identity of women. For the purpose of this study, as well as to guide the data analyses at the end, the focus was on cultural identity and not ethnic identity, suggesting three broad theoretical discussions, namely: Culture, identity and gender.

Furthermore, my involvement with the module: The Anthropology of heritage, which I assisted in coordinating and which I am presenting (2019 - ) at one of the satellite campuses of the UFS (South Campus), led to an interest in heritage. In 2019, an international conference abstract was accepted for the London Centre for Interdisciplinary Research International Conference with the title: “Place of memory as a ‘battleground’:  The M.T. Steyn statue as catalyst for contestation, renegotiation and transformation in South Africa”. Since 2019, I have also been part of an interdisciplinary (Anthropology, Geology and Ground Water Studies) research project on the world listed heritage site, the Vredefort Dome, crossing the physical locations of Vredefort and Parys in the Free State (South Africa).

Another research area, fostered by opportunities of exposure, falls under the broader disciplinary domain of urban development. In 2018, I contributed to a research project led by the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) as a research consultant. My involvement with the HSRC asked of me to review housing policy as well as its application in the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality (Bloemfontein, Free State, South Africa) in the form of a case study. Besides the case study, two formal presentations to respective representatives of the HSRC and the Department of Human Settlements were required. In 2017, I mentored an Anthropology honours student with her fieldwork and writing up of a case study. Her fieldwork touched on topics of alternative housing and urban gardening/farming in Bloemfontein.

Course involvement: Anti 1514: Introduction to Anthropology (First-year module) and Anth 1524 Anthropology of heritage (First year module)