Geraldine Sibanda is a postdoctoral fellow with the International Studies Group, Bloemfontein, South Africa. She completed her PhD in December 2021 and is currently working on a monograph derived from the thesis, which is tentatively titled, Zimbabwe’s Elite Pacts: Economic Planning, State Finance and Odious Debt. She is also a Research Associate with the European University Institute’s Department of History and Civilization Twentieth Century International Economic Thinking and the Complex History of Globalisation - ECOINT Project where she is developing a series of working papers that examine the development of African economic thought through the lens of international civil servants based in Africa in the late 20th century. She has lectured at the History Departments of the Universities of the Free State and Johannesburg, while also developing and teaching the Masters in Economic History Program (commencing October 2024) of the London based independent institution - the School of Pan-African Thought. Sibanda has been visiting fellow at the Universities of Lausanne, Switzerland and EUI, Italy. Additionally, Sibanda is review editor with the Netherlands based H-Diplo. Her work is published in the Routledge Handbook of Zimbabwean Politics, H-Diplo, and she has several book chapters. She has also presented these works at various conferences held at universities across the globe including, in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Italy, Spain, Slovenia and Kenya. Some of her work has been through collaborations with colleagues who have organised interviews with her as coordinator (2020-23) and organiser (present) of the Young Scholars Initiative Africa Working Group. Her current research projects can be divided into three interconnected themes as she expands her role as an economic historian of Southern Africa particularly examining the impact of international institutions in the various facets of African economies; African Economic Thought (1940s – 2000), politics and the financing of decolonisation In Southern Africa (1940s - 1994) and “Poor Numbers”?: The Politics of Economics (post-independent Zimbabwe and South Africa).
Publications
G. Sibanda, H-Diplo Roundtable xxv-2 (Review Article). Timothy Lewis Scarnecchia, Race and Diplomacy in Zimbabwe: The Cold War and Decolonization, 1960–1984. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2021). Open access (2023):17-23.
Nyamunda, T. and G. Sibanda. ‘The Making of Zimbabwe’s Currency and Economic Crisis: International Financial Architecture, Nationalism, and Economic Policies 1980–2000’, The Oxford Handbook of Zimbabwean Politics, M Tendi, J McGregor, and J Alexander (eds), 2020.
Scholarships/Awards/Funding
Visiting Fellowship, Universities of Lausanne, Centre of International History and Political Studies of Globalisation (CHRIM) Lausanne, Switzerland, 2022
Visiting Fellowship, European University Institute, Department of History and Civilisation – Twentieth Century International Economic Thinking - ECOINT Project, Florence, Italy 2022
Fellowship Grant, Swiss National Foundation, CHF18 000, 2022
Workshop Grant, Young Scholars Initiative, US$7 000, 2022
Workshop Grant, Young Scholars Initiative, US$8 000, 2022
Research Grant, ECOINT-European University Institute, Euro 1000, 2022
Research Grant, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), US$4 000, 2021
- Rhodes University COVID-19 Research Grant, 2021
- Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Research Grant, 2021
- PhD scholarship, in the International Studies Group, 2017