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John currently serves as Project Manager of the Transdisciplinary Sustainability Analysis, Modelling and Assessment (TSAMA) HUB – together with colleagues from five different faculties at Stellenbosch University as well as the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and the Sustainability Institute (SI), instrumental in institutionalising of the first Transdisciplinary Doctoral Programme in Sustainability Studies in South Africa. Prior to this responsibility John worked in a sustainable neighbourhood development project, an organisational transformation project, as national mediator at the National Peace Secretariat involved in facilitating and mediating various community- and politically-related conflicts posing a threat to the 1994 elections, and as part-time lecturer on the Values and Policy Studies programme of Stellenbosch University. John has as well a longstanding experience as an entrepreneur and business owner.
In 2005 John organised a workshop on Transdisciplinarity at Stellenbosch University – facilitated by two international thinkers in the field of Transdisciplinarity, namely Prof Basarab Nicolescu (quantum physicist at the University of Paris – France) and Prof Manfred Max-Neef (ecological and developmental economist and former rector of the University of Valdivia – Chile). The workshop was attended by 30 leading academics from across the full spectrum of the natural and social sciences, representing all the major universities in South Africa.
John holds a B.A. hons and a M.A. in Philosophy, a B.Th. in Theology, and a B.Soc.Sci-Hons. in Sociology, and he is currently a doctoral student with a dissertation on “Transdisciplinary Knowledge Production – The Challenge of Producing Knowledge Across Boundaries in the Planetary Crisis”.
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