Kopano Ratele

Professor of Psychology at the University of Stellenbosch and head of the Centre for Critical and Creative Thought, Kopano Ratele specialises in studies on men, boys and masculinities as well as African/decolonial/cultural/critical psychology.

Ratele is a former director of the South African Medical Research Council-University of South Africa’s Masculinity and Health Research Unit, and former research professor at the Unisa where he ran the Transdisciplinary African Psychologies Programme. He was a member of the second Ministerial Committee on Transformation of South African Universities, a former chairperson of Sonke Gender Justice, former member of the management committee of the Department of Science and Innovation-National Research Foundation Centre of Excellence in Human Development, and past president of the Psychological Society of South Africa. He sits on the national advisory board for the Future Professors Programme.

Ratele has published extensively. In addition to over 150 journal articles and book chapters, his books include:
#There Was This Goat: Investigating the Truth Commission Testimony of Notrose Nobomvu Konile;
#Liberating Masculinities;
#Engaging Youth in Activism, Research and Pedagogical Praxis: Transnational and Intersectional Perspectives on Gender, Sex, and Race;
#The World Looks Like This From Here: Thoughts on African Psychology (2019);
#Why Men Hurt Women and Other Reflections on Love, Violence and Masculinity (2022); and
#The Palgrave Handbook of African Men and Masculinities (2024).

A co-host of the parenting and fatherhood feature on SAFM radio’s The Meeting Point with Koketso Sachane, Ratele is a co-editor of the State of South Africa’s Fathers (SOSAF) 2024.