Dr. Thembani Dube is a Senior lecturer in the Department of History, Stellenbosch University, South Africa. She holds a PhD in History from the University of the Witwatersrand, a Master’s in African History, a Bachelor of Arts (Special Honors) in History, and a Bachelor of Arts (General) degree from the University of Zimbabwe. She works on pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial Southern African History (Zimbabwe in particular) with special interest in social history, identity and belonging She is currently working on, Kalanga: Identity, language and change in Zimbabwe, 1800-2022, a monograph that explores the (un)making of the Kalanga and how this identity evolved, mediated by different institutions such as chieftainship, religion and language in colonial and post-colonial states. Thembani was a recipient of the SSRC’s 2024 African Peacebuilding Network Individual Research Fellowship Award.