School of Social and Political Science

Research interests

Carin's research broadly focuses on Black working class popular politics and social movements in post-apartheid South Africa. Her research has interrogated the political and organisational dynamics of community protest and new forms of precarious worker organising. She is particularly interested in how these forms of activism help us to understand the experiences and quality of post-apartheid democracy with particular attention to the articulation of indigenous concepts of democracy and its praxis within community organisations. 

In addition to this, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic she was a collaborator and  Co-PI on the UJ/HSRC COVID-19 Democracy survey, a cross-sectional online survey conducted among adults living in South Africa in order to understand the social and economic impacts of the pandemic and the factors influencing vaccine hesitancy. The findings of this research were used to brief various South African government departments in developing their pandemic response policies and in addressing vaccine hesitancy. 

I am interested in supervising PhD projects related to protest and social movements and the practice of citizenship and democracy. 

Carin is an editorial board member of The Sociological Review, the Journal of Contemporary African Studies and the South African Review of Socioogy.