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Erin Torkelson

@erintorkelson.bsky.social
416 followers 362 following 27 posts

UWC geographer, writing about debt, racial capitalism, and the social welfare state in South Africa.

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Reposted by Erin Torkelson
MNG - University Presses @mngupbooks.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
@erintorkelson.bsky.social explores how the direct cash transfer program instituted in South Africa revised and reworked post-apartheid racialized and gendered dispossession. Visit our stand in person at #RGSIBG26 or find us online ⬇️ mngbookshop.co.uk/rgs-2026/ @dukepress.bsky.social @rgs.org
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 09/08/2026
I’m ashamed to be a former Fulbright scholar today.… The Fulbright Foundation put out a NOFO for $1 million to find evidence of “crimes affecting Afrikaner and other minorities“
state.gov
Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO): Documentation of Hateful Rhetoric Targeting Minority Populations in South Africa - United States Department of State
A. Basic Information 1. Overview Funding Opportunity Title Documentation of Hateful Rhetoric Targeting Minority Populations in South Africa Funding Opportunity Number DFOP0019546 Announcement Type Ini...
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Reposted by Erin Torkelson
The Syllabus @the-syllabus.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
South Africa’s cash transfer program has been hailed as a success. But as our book of the week details, this form of financial inclusion turned grants into collateral, feeding lenders while the state preserved scarcity. By @erintorkelson.bsky.social on @dukepress.bsky.social buff.ly/5gvCo0g
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 15/06/2026
that’s a helluva way to put $1T in perspective!
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 05/06/2026
I’ve been feeling this so much lately, but it’s still shocking to see in print. Also… the 1970s cohort?!? As if we needed more proof the end of the social welfare state is killing us.
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Reposted by Erin Torkelson
Duke University Press @dukepress.bsky.social · 07/05/2026
Save 40% on #NewBook "Predatory Welfare" by @erintorkelson.bsky.social, which draws on seven years of ethnographic fieldwork to explore how South Africa’s direct cash transfer program has become a means of continued upward wealth redistribution despite promises otherwise. buff.ly/wpOrvdc
Cover of Predatory Welfare: Debt, Race, and Cash Transfers by Erin Torkelson. The cover features a Black person in an orange shirt holding a bright green debit card covering their card number with their finger. The bottom is a dark teal with the title, subtitle, and author all in a sans serif font. ‘Predatory’ is written in white and ‘welfare’ is written in bright green. The subtitle is in grey. The author’s name is in a yellow orange.
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
I started working on this project with the Black Sash in 2016. I can’t believe that a decade later, the book is a real, material object in the world. I’m so very proud of it and I’d love to speak to your classes and departments! And, @dukepress.bsky.social is having a sale!
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 22/03/2026
I’ve got a book coming out! Check out the introduction online now!
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Reposted by Erin Torkelson
Duke University Press @dukepress.bsky.social · 05/12/2025
Our new Spring 2026 catalog features a terrific lineup of #NewBooks by @proteinthebook.bsky.social, @erintorkelson.bsky.social, @scottsvisor, @crysbaik.bsky.social, and many more! Check it out now: buff.ly/ToBoRB7
Cover of Duke University Press catalog. The background features the Puerto Rican flag colors—red, white, and blue. "Duke University Press" is written in yellow and white in the blue triangular section and "Spring and Summer 2026" is in the red and white section on the left. Features an illustration of Bad Bunny wearing a yellow outfit and a large straw hat, holding a microphone with yellow lightning bolts emanating from it is in the lower half. The DUP logo is in the lower right.
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
I should start a column called: why is Trump mad at South Africa today? Because we won't let him bring Kenyans on volunteer visas to work (not volunteer!) at a processing site for Afrikaner 'refugees.' The US created a precarious immigrant workforce in SA to vet immigrants who are not precarious.
dailymaverick.co.za
Why did SA government officials raid the site processing US-bound ‘refugees’? | Daily Maverick
On Tuesday, 16 December, a Johannesburg centre processing applications for South Africans wishing to take up ‘refugee’ status was raided by Home Affairs officials and the police. We break it down.
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 10/11/2025
As Trump bans US officials from attending the G20 in South Africa due to ‘Afrikaner genocide,’ he can only find 3 Afrikaner ‘refugees’ willing to move to the US! www.news24.com/citypress/ne...
news24.com
US books dozens of seats for Afrikaner ‘refugees’, but only three pitch up | News24
Far fewer ‘refugees’ arrived for their flights than were catered for. Despite this, the US government has targeted resettlement of 6 000 people by the end of November.
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
Trump invited a billionaire and two golfers into the Oval Office to scold the sitting South African president, after showing a reality tv-style montage about a genocide that doesn’t exist. I guess this is US diplomacy now.
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 21/05/2025
This meeting is about genocide, but not the mythological “white genocide” it’s pretending to be about. It’s about the US punishing South Africa for taking Israel to the ICJ.
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Send me your recommendations!! I have an honors student writing about young South Africans who try but fail to make competitive football leagues & how they figure out what to do next in a context of high unemployment. There must be great books about this, but it’s a little out of my area! Thanks!
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 21/03/2025
I wanted to love Raoul Peck’s film on Ernest Cole, but found it disorienting that he did not hire a South African to consult on LaKeith Stanfield’s voice over. Mispronouncing names of people and places - Mamelodi, Soweto, Basotho - sometimes to the point of unrecognizability, is careless.
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 19/03/2025
“When the powerful punish the principled, we glimpse the unmasked face of empire. Donald Trump’s vindictive executive order denying aid to South Africa — punishment for its support of Palestine and pursuit of land reform — offers precisely such a moment of clarity.”
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 15/03/2025
What got Ambassador Rasool expelled from the US? Nuance & patience. He said: -how SA responds to the US "demands perspective" -Biden wanted SA to be removed from AGOA due to our "geopolitical stances" (i.e. Palestine) -we need to watch how Americans push back against Trump's EOs before acting
engineeringnews.co.za
South Africa attempting to take nuanced line in navigating US relations
There has been a deluge of more than 100 executive decisions taken by US President Donald Trump following his re-election in November, including the imposition of import tariffs on traditionally allie...
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Facts about the “white genocide myth” in SA: - Farm murder stats include black people killed on farms, not just white people - Most farm murders are robberies and have no genocidal intent - White people make up 9% of pop, but only 1.8% of murders www.splcenter.org/resources/ha...
splcenter.org
The dangerous myth of 'white genocide' in South Africa
Narratives about a fictitious campaign to exterminate Afrikaners have the power to produce real violence.
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
Burawoy taught the best graduate seminar ever, where theory-making was deeply collaborative. He paired up students who worked in different places, on different things, with different theoretical commitments and made us think our work in relation to one another. No one could stretch theory like him.
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 12/06/2024
So proud to work at UWC!
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 04/05/2024
Great idea! Our students at the University of the Western Cape (in South Africa) did this two weeks ago! It would be cool to see it travel!
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 02/01/2024
Meanwhile… the UA President still has his job after a $240 mil shortfall, including a $54 mil loan to the athletics department, the purchase of a shady for-profit online college, and a $1.7 mil upgrade to his basketball suit. azluminaria.org/2023/11/16/u...
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 11/11/2023
One more reason to love Cape Town!
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 08/11/2023
"We join the world in expressing horror at the war crimes being committed in Palestine through targeting civilians, civilian infrastructure, UN premises & other vulnerable targets. These experiences remind us of our experiences as black South Africans living under apartheid.” Minister Naledi Pandor
dailymaverick.co.za
Pandor calls for Gaza ceasefire and end to Israel’s ‘collective punishment’
International Relations Minister Naledi Pandor on Tuesday called for an immediate comprehensive ceasefire in Gaza and the release of civilian hostages, describing Israel’s actions as ‘apartheid op...
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 23/09/2023
Calling all geographers!!
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Erin Torkelson @erintorkelson.bsky.social · 20/09/2023
Just joined the great bird migration. I'm here now.
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