Madalitso Zililo Phiri is a Researcher in the South Africa-United Kingdom Bilateral Research Chair in Political Theory at the University of the Witwatersrand. He was previously a Visiting Fellow at the University of Cambridge’s Centre of African Studies and a Visiting College Research Associate at Wolfson College, Cambridge (2023–2024). His research examines the political economy of development in Africa, the sociology and politics of race, and Black political thought, with particular focus on racialised welfare regimes in South Africa and Brazil.
Phiri is the author of The Colour of Inequality in South Africa and Brazil: Making Sense of Social Policy as Reparations (Brill, 2025), published in the Studies in Critical Social Sciences series. His work has appeared in leading journals including Critical Sociology, Monthly Review, Global Health Promotion, Journal of Southern African Studies, and South African Journal of International Affairs, as well as in edited volumes such as History of Intellectual Culture and After Globalization. He holds a PhD in Sociology from the University of South Africa, an MPhil in Development Studies, a BSocSci (Honours) in International Relations, and a BSocSci in Politics and Sociology—all from the University of Cape Town. His career has been shaped by prestigious fellowships, including the Carnegie Corporation of New York Fellowship through the SSRC’s Next Generation of Social Sciences in Africa programme (2014–2017), the African Studies Association’s Carnegie Corporation Scholar Award, and the African Studies Review’s Emerging African Scholars Award. He has also held a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study. An experienced educator, Phiri has taught undergraduate and graduate courses in African Studies, Sociology, Politics, and Research Methods at the University of Cambridge, the University of the Witwatersrand, the University of Pretoria, and Rhodes University. He is proficient in English, fluent in Chichewa, and competent in Portuguese.
