Tribute from her supervisor, Prof Andries Du Toit
It is hard to convey the acute sense of shock and loss I feel at the news of the untimely death of Taki Sithagu, whom I had the privilege of supervising as a PLAAS PhD student since 2020. Taki was one of our Covid-19 intake students, so we never met physically: our entire working relationship was conducted via email and regular Zoom meetings. So I never got to know Taki as her colleagues in Gauteng and her fellow students knew her. The aspects I got to know — the keen academic thinker, the perceptive mind, the enquiring student — were impressive and inspiring.
The only aspect of her life I really witnessed was the research journey she was on, and the original and path-breaking work she was doing exploring hybrid land management institutions and the dealings between municipal officials and traditional authorities in Kwamhlanga. This was innovative research, informed in part by her thorough intellectual grasp of her field, but led above all by that intangible something that not many scholars have, but which sets apart the truly excellent from the merely professional: a finely honed instinct for nuance and complexity, and the ability to turn fieldwork from the routine collection of facts to real-life detective work.
Perhaps the clearest sense I have of her is the impression I got from reading her detailed fieldnotes: her courteous interactions with everyone she met, her insightful reading of the dynamics of power, status and gender as they played out in the moment, and her keen eye for the telling detail. She was formidable. I was completely sure that the dissertation she was writing would be a classic — and that she was set for a career as a leading and creative intellectual in her field.
Taki never disclosed to me the nature of her illness. I only learned in January this year that she had given birth to a premature child, and that she had also been diagnosed with a serious illness, which led to her deciding to take a year’s leave of absence. In July this year, when I enquired about her wellbeing, she assured me that both she and her baby were fine, and less than two weeks before her death, when I wrote to her enquiring about her plans, she assured me she was still planning to re-register in 2025. Her untimely loss is a deep shock. My heart goes out to her family, friends and loved ones: we have lost a truly formidable woman, and we are all the poorer for her passing.
