Cherryl Walker is Professor of Sociology. She has extensive research as well as applied experience in land reform, rural development and gender studies, spanning the academic, state and NGO sectors.
Her broad fields of research interest include the sociology of land, land reform and the environment in South Africa and the wider region, with a particular interest in the land claims process in South Africa; the multiple meanings of land; women's land rights in a context of major social change, and understanding environmental conservation in contemporary society.
Her most recent books are Landmarked; Land Claims and Land Restitution in South Africa (2008) and an edited collection: Cherryl Walker, Anna Bohlin, Ruth Hall and Thembela Kepe (eds.), Land, Memory, Reconstruction and Justice: Perspectives on Land Claims in South Africa (2010).
Previous books are Women and Resistance in South Africa (1982, 1991); an edited collection, Women and Gender in Southern Africa to 1945 (1990), and the co-authored study of forced removals in South Africa, The Surplus People (1985, with Laurine Platzky (for the Surplus People Project).
Between 1995 and 2000 she served on South Africa's Commission on Restitution of Land Rights as Regional Land Claims Commissioner for the province of KwaZulu-Natal. In 2009 she received a Rector's Award for research excellence.
