Dr Brittany Bunce

Brittany Bunce is a Postdoctoral Research  Associate at the Institute for Global Sustainable Development. She works on capacity development approaches for the AfriCultuReS Project - Enhancing Food Security in African AgriCultural Systems with the support of Remote Sensing. This is a European Union Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme. 

Brittany completed her PhD under the supervision of Professor Ben Cousins at the Institute for Poverty, Land and Agrarian Studies (PLAAS), at the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. Her PhD research investigated agricultural investments in the form of ‘joint ventures’ between smallholder farmers and agribusiness firms in South Africa’s communal areas. The research evaluated the impacts of the joint venture model on livelihoods, land rights and use, and agrarian change, and engaged with key debates regarding the dynamics of class formation in the former ‘homelands’ of South Africa. Brittany also has an MSc in Social Policy and Development from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BSocSci in History and Politics from the University of Cape Town.

Brittany worked at PLAAS as a Research Associate on the CBPEP/ GTAC/ EU Project on 'Employment-intensive rural land reform in South Africa: Policies, programmes and capacities'. This EU-funded initiative aimed at assisting the Government of South Africa to attain its goal of reducing unemployment through land redistribution to smallholder farmers. 

Brittany has worked for a number of civil society organisations and research institutes. She worked for the Black Sash Human Rights Organisation as Project Manager, on a participatory, action research project focused on strengthening the role of Community Health Committees in monitoring the public health system in South Africa. She has also conducted evaluations of government and donor funded programmes, for example, an ‘implementation evaluation of the Comprehensive Rural Development Programme (CRDP)’ for the Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME) in South Africa, and the ‘HERStory Study: a process evaluation of the combination HIV prevention intervention for adolescent girls and young women (AGYW)’ for the Global Fund and the South African Medical Research Council.

Brittany’s primary field of expertise is focused on the political economy of agrarian change and rural livelihoods. However, she has a broad range of research interests and expertise including in public health, gender and development, refugees and migration, conservation and political ecology.