Explore non-western perspectives on South-South and international relations through lectures, visits, and internships involving diplomats, activists, and intellectuals in South Africa and Mozambique.
16
None
isiZulu
English
Jan 20 – Apr 30
South Africa
Mozambique
Durban
Required
Geopolitics & Power
Development & Inequality
This program offers an opportunity to learn non-western perspectives in the fields of South-South and international relations and to examine broad policy questions in sub-Saharan Africa through the lenses of youth employment, conflict, and poverty. An introduction to South African politics sets the groundwork for the program focus on international relations and foreign policy, providing an opportunity for you to engage in major contemporary debates surrounding international affairs in the Global South. The program also captures the evolving contours of the relationship between the Global South and the Global North.
We examine the African Union and other continental influencers including international organizations and non-state actors, and we look at how BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has emerged as an alternative power block on the global political stage. Central to the program is the opportunity to intern at an internationally acclaimed NGO, such as the Africa Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes (ACCORD), the Institute for Global Dialogue (IGD), the Center for Applied Legal Studies (CALS), the South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), or the Centre for African Diplomacy and Leadership (CADL).
You will visit the Luthuli Museum, former home of Chief Albert Luthuli, the first Black Nobel Prize winner, and the home and ashram of Mahatma Gandhi, whose political consciousness was shaped in South Africa, to meet with his granddaughter. Learn about the role of NGOs in international relations on excursions to Cape Town and Maputo, Mozambique, which offered frontline state solidarity to South Africa during apartheid.
None.
Students studying on this SIT semester-length program can choose to simultaneously complete a minor, with no additional coursework or cost. At SIT, a minor is a minimum of 16 credits taken within a content area. This standout credential can help boost your future job or graduate school applications.
SIT's program in South Africa offers the choice to do a minor in international studies or Africana studies. You'll develop analytical skills in comparative politics, regional cooperation, and international governance while engaging with scholars, civil society organizations, and policy institutions in South Africa and on an excursion to Mozambique. Through coursework on post-colonial transitions and continental politics, field visits to historical sites and rural communities, and your Independent Study Project or internship with local organizations, you'll examine Global North/Global South partnerships, post-apartheid democratization, foreign policy, and contemporary political dynamics while analyzing how the Global South shapes international relations and challenges traditional power structures in the 21st century.
Your base for the program will be in Durban, among the most cosmopolitan of South Africa’s cities with a rich fusion of African, western, and Asian influences. Parts of the city have transformed into distinct Ethiopian, Congolese, Malawian, Pakistani, Chinese, and other enclaves. Here, you will experience several fascinating excursions: You’ll visit residents of an informal shack dwellers settlement; an African traders’ market; an ecotourism project; a center for jazz and popular music; and local museums.
In Johannesburg, the largest city in South Africa, you will visit the Apartheid Museum and Freedom Park Museum to gain a better understanding of the 20th century history of South Africa, and the Pan-African Parliament, a legislative body of the African Union. You will see the Constitutional Court and Soweto, where you will learn about how students joined the struggle against apartheid at the Hector Pieterson Museum. You also will explore the Mandela House, former home of Nelson and Winnie Mandela. You also will explore the Mandela House on Vilakazi Street. This is the former home of Nelson and Winnie Mandela. Vilakazi Street is the only street that was home two Nobel Peace Prize Laureates, Nelson Mandela and Arch-Bishop Desmond Tutu. Various think tanks are based in the city, and you will visit a few organizations and reflect on these.
Study the shared histories of South Africa and Mozambique and the key collaborative role played by Mozambique’s ruling party, Frelimo, in the liberation struggle against apartheid, following its own hard-fought independence from Portugal in the 1970s. This framing helps us understand a key example of historical and contemporary South-South relations and how a frontline state like Mozambique rose to the political occasion for South Africa. Meet with officials from the Foreign Affairs ministry and learn from activists about their lives in exile with activists from South Africa, such as Former Constitutional Court Judge, Albie Sachs.
You will live with families in the Amacambini Reserve for a short rural homestay. During this excursion, you will engage in a rural research project to understand rural development, rural economies, and land usage.
Visit the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve, one of the largest and oldest game reserves in South Africa, where you will have the chance to spot the “Big Five” (lion, leopard, buffalo, elephant, and black and white rhino), as well as giraffes, warthogs, and zebras.
During the evaluation period, the program travels to Cape Town, where you will typically visit Robben Island, site of the prison that held late South African President Nelson Mandela for 18 years and many other political activists. It is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In addition, you will trek or ride up the scenic cliffs of Table Mountain, part of the coastal Table Mountain National Park. You may have some time to explore the city and Bo-Kaap and the Iziko Museums on your own.
Please note that SIT will make every effort to maintain its programs as described. To respond to emergent situations, however, SIT may have to change or cancel programs.
Upon successful completion of the program, students will be able to:
The following syllabi are representative of this program. Because courses develop and change over time to take advantage of dynamic learning opportunities, actual course content will vary from term to term.
The syllabi can be useful for students, faculty, and study abroad offices in assessing credit transfer. Read more about credit transfer.
International Relations in the Global South
(INTS3000 / 3 credits)
This interdisciplinary seminar begins with an introduction to South African politics and goes on to wade into the field of international relations and diplomacy, introducing students to dominant theoretical paradigms in international relations. The course will also explore major contemporary issues and border politics in the Southern African region.
Continental Geopolitics and South-South Relations
(INTS3005 / 3 credits)
The course looks at the impact of poor governance on Africa’s development and will explore how geopolitics in Africa are characterized by cooperation and competition over natural resources, as well as a desire of African countries to forge stronger links with the world’s traditional and emerging superpowers.
A large part of the course looks at continental organizations such as the African Union, international organizations and non-state actors, and the roles played by African states in regional organizations. Students will also be introduced to the recent resurgence of South–South cooperation in international affairs, in the context of how BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) has emerged as an alternative power block and moved to the center stage of world politics.
isiZulu – syllabus
(ZULU1003 / 3 credits)
Emphasis is on beginning speaking and comprehension skills through classroom instruction. The course aims to develop conversational abilities in isiZulu and provide greater insight into various aspects of Zulu culture through discussions and excursions.
Choose one of the following two courses:
Social Science Methods and Ethics in Global Contexts – syllabus
(RSCH3500 / 3 credits)
This course is designed to introduce you to the methodological tools used by social scientists to conduct empirically grounded, theoretically engaged research. The course will cover the basic elements of research design, the role of theory in empirical research, and the ethics for social scientific research, with particular attention to the complex ethical considerations that arise when conducting research in international and cross-cultural contexts. Students will gain hands-on experience with both basic quantitative and qualitative methods, with the flexibility to emphasize their preferred methodological approach in their final work. Using this project-based approach, the course will prepare you to design and execute social science research projects while developing competency across methodological traditions.
OR
Global Organizational Culture and Ethics – syllabus
(GOCE3500 / 3 credits)
This course equips students to engage meaningfully and ethically in internship experiences across diverse sociopolitical, cultural, environmental, and global contexts. Using a critical, practice-based approach, students examine the nature and purpose of internships as transformative experiential learning opportunities that connect to the program’s Critical Global Issue theme. Emphasis is placed on navigating workplace and organizational cultures, reflecting on identity and positionality in professional settings, and applying ethical principles to working globally with communities, individuals, and environments—particularly in collaboration with vulnerable populations and in sensitive ecological or habitat settings.
In addition to taking the above courses, students will choose one of the following two tracks:
Internship
Internship & Seminar – syllabus
(ITRN3000 / 4 credits)
This course consists of a four-week internship with a national or international relations organization that is working on South-South relations, foreign policy or conflict resolution within the southern Africa context. The internship enables students to obtain skills and knowledge in methods, principles of, and obstacles to African development, continental solidarity, and peace within societies that have been highly polarized by racialized social welfare policies and racialized national politics, as was the case in South Africa for many decades.
Sample internships:
OR
Independent Study Project
Independent Study Project – syllabus
(ISPR3000 / 4 credits)
Conducted in Durban or in another approved location appropriate to the project. Students may choose to complete either a research-based or practicum-based Independent Study Project, the former being a traditional research paper and the latter emerging from a practicum with an affiliated organization working in social and/or political transformation. Sample topic areas: border politics in the southern African region; peace and conflict in the SADC region; democracy as defined by South Africans; insurgency in Cabo Delgado; unconstitutional changes in government on the African continent; deglobalization and the rise and fall of the BRICS challenge to the West.
Sample ISP topic areas:
Browse this program’s Independent Study Projects and undergraduate research.
Live with isiZulu-speaking families for five weeks in Cato Manor. Prior to apartheid Cato Manor was a multi-cultural location. The area went through many changes in terms of its demography which gives it a very unique history. Cato Manor is about eight kilometers from the SIT Learning Center. You’ll practice isiZulu and witness the richness of daily life, as well as receiving insights into what life in this suburb with a peri-urban feel means for the homestay families. You can expect to have mobile phone reception, flush toilets, and electricity. Students must note, however, that immense pressure is on the electricity grid as well as water infrastructure which can lead to blackouts or no water in Durban. Families generally find that uncapped WIFI is not affordable and often purchase data bundles for their cellphones. Where families do not have connectivity, a mobile data device will be provided with an initial amount of data. Once spent, students will need to top up on data.
Glenwood, formerly a white suburb at the foot of the University of KwaZulu-Natal, has become more cosmopolitan through the emergence of the Black middle class. Socio-economic mobility has seen more isiZulu speakers buying properties in former white suburbs. Glenwood is about four kilometers from the SIT Learning Center. You will experience quiet living with a family in a leafy suburb where municipal service delivery is normally good, but you may also experience power outage and water stoppages. You can expect to have mobile phone reception, flush toilets, and electricity. Students will get to experience both Glenwood and Cato Manor homestays to get a holistic experience of the types of living environments around the learning center.
This is a rural homestay for three to four days in Amacambini, about 100 kilometers north of Durban and one night in a lodge to experience a game drive. Some homes may not have indoor plumbing or piped water.
Live for about two weeks in Newlands, approximately 20 kilometers from Durban’s city center, with an Indian or Coloured family.
During the final four weeks of the program, many students in Durban choose to stay in apartments. Other accommodations during the program may include hostels, private homes, or small hotels.
Recent positions held by alumni of this program include:
Researcher for the Special Rapporteur for Truth, Justice, Reparation, and Guarantees of Non-Recurrence at the United Nations Human Rights Council, Memphis, TN
Researcher at ACCORD (Africa Centre for the Constructive Resolution of Disputes), Durban, South Africa
Policy Specialist at the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Conflict and Stability, Washington, DC
Researcher at National Geographic, Washington, DC
Manager at Open Society Foundation, London, UK
SIT Study Abroad is committed to ensuring that international education is within reach for all students. We believe in the transformative power of immersive, intercultural experiences and are dedicated to supporting students in their educational journey.
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Students are required to obtain a visa for this program. Your admissions officer will provide you further guidance on the process and support documents. Please do not apply without instructions from your admissions officer.
Come along as we explore social and political change in Durban and beyond!
