COUNCIL MEMBERS
Bernedette Muthien
Council Member
For over twenty years, Bernedette Muthien has held executive and senior management positions in academia, civil society, and the public sector in South Africa and internationally. She is an accomplished facilitator, researcher, and poet who designs, implements, and evaluates projects for a wide range of institutions at local and global levels. Based in Cape Town, she is a Research Fellow in the Office of International Affairs at the University of the Free State and is currently serving a second term on the Council of Iziko Museums of South Africa. In this role, she serves on the Audit and Risk Committee and chairs the Core Functions and Support Services Committee.
Ms Muthien previously served part-time on South Africa’s Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities (2014–2019), where she was responsible for parliamentary liaison, research and policy development, and public education. She also held the position of Deputy Director-General: Social Transformation and Economic Empowerment in the Presidency (2015–2016), serving within the high-level Economic Cluster and its Executive Project Management Unit.
She has authored over 200 publications and conference presentations, many of which have been translated from English into at least sixteen other languages. A Fulbright–Amy Biehl Fellow at Stanford University, she holds postgraduate degrees in Political Science from the University of Cape Town, where she was placed on the Dean’s Merit List, and from Stellenbosch University, where she was an Andrew W. Mellon Fellow. Her book project, Rethinking Africa: Indigenous Women Re-interpret Southern Africa’s Pasts, developed during her tenure as a Visiting Research Fellow at the Centre for African Studies at UCT, was published by Jacana in 2021 and nominated for several book prizes.
Ms Muthien has served on the Executive Council of the International Peace Research Association and is a co-founder of the African Peace Research and Education Association. She currently serves on several international advisory boards, including the journals Human Security Studies and Journal of Human Security, as well as the International Institute on Peace Education. Since at least 2013, she has chaired and served on numerous constitutional and company boards, including those of the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC), the Pan South African Language Board (PanSALB), Robben Island Museum, False Bay TVET College, and Shonaquip, a social enterprise focused on the provision of disability equipment.