Staff profile

Anne Heffernan is a historian of modern South and Southern Africa. Her work focuses on the role of students and young people in influencing political trends and changes, particularly during apartheid. She is especially interested in protest politics and the development of new forms of political ideology and practice. Her forthcoming book, Limpopo's Legacy: Students & Democracy in South Africa (Boydell & Brewer, 2019) explores many of these themes from a regional perspective. Her next project will consider the role of South African students in the late 20th century through a transnational lens. 

Dr Heffernan welcomes applications and interest from postgraduate students interested in researching the history of South and Southern African politics, social and political movements, youth movements, and other related topics.

• Youth & Student politics
• Protest
• Black Consciousness
• South African history

• Africa
• Modern
• Political Cultures
• Transnational History

Authored book

• Heffernan, Anne (2019). Limpopo's Legacy: Student Politics & Democracy in South Africa. Boydell & Brewer.

Chapter in book

• Heffernan, Anne (2019). Ideas and Political Mobilization in Africa. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics. Oxford University Press.
• Heffernan, Anne (2016). The University of the North, a regional and national centre of activism. In Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto '76. Heffernan, Anne & Nieftagodien, Noor Johannesburg: Wits University Press. 45-54.

Edited book

• Heffernan, Anne & Nieftagodien, Noor (2016). Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto '76. Johannesburg: Wits University Press.

Journal Article

• Heffernan, Anne (2019). Student/teachers from Turfloop: the propagation of Black Consciousness in South African schools, 1972–76. Africa 89(S1): S189-S209.
• Heffernan, Anne (2017). The University of the North and Building the Bantustans, 1959–1977. South African Historical Journal 69(2): 195-214.
• Heffernan, Anne (2016). Blurred lines and ideological divisions in South African youth politics. African Affairs 115(461): 664-687.
• Heffernan, Anne (2015). Black Consciousness's Lost Leader: Abraham Tiro, the University of the North, and the Seeds of South Africa's Student Movement in the 1970s. Journal of Southern African Studies 41(1): 173-186.