Conscious Conversations with Mmabatho Montse

In this episode of Conscious Conversations, Riel Miller, futurist, economist, and pioneer of Futures Literacy, joins Mmabatho Montse to explore the ethical, philosophical, and deeply personal dimensions of anticipation. Together, they unpack how coloniality, productivity culture, and structural violence have distorted humanity’s relationship with time, imagination, and learning. The conversation j...

In this episode of Conscious Conversations, Dr. John Scott joins Mmabatho Montse to explore what it means to live education as a praxis of self-knowledge, action, and ethical transformation. Together, they move beyond schooling as a system of conformity and efficiency, instead reframing education as a deeply intuitive, embodied, and ancestral journey toward becoming. Drawing on insights from his d...

In this episode of Conscious Conversations, Mmabatho Montse is joined by educator, Mafole Sematlane for a rich dialogue on the role of education in restoring African identity, healing colonial trauma, and reweaving cultural wholeness. Drawing from his journey in Lesotho and over a decade of work in social transformation, Mafole introduces Afro-symbiosity, a paradigm rooted in Basotho values such a...

In this episode of Conscious Conversations, Mmabatho Montse speaks with Chad Zibelman, CEO of The Sonder Project, to explore how community empowerment can serve as a powerful vehicle for social education and global equity. With years of experience in international development, Chad brings grounded insight into the practicalities and ethical complexities of working across cultural and geographic bo...

In this deeply resonant episode of Conscious Conversations, African folk musician and cultural practitioner Mthuthu Ndebele joins Mmabatho Montse for a dialogue on ancestral memory, creative embodiment, and the sacred labour of artistic becoming. Rooted in personal experience and spiritual conviction, Mthuthu reflects on his journey from Ulundi’s cultural heartbeat to becoming a vessel for interge...

In this episode of Conscious Conversations, Mmabatho Montse is joined by Dr. Christy Garrison-Harrison, historian, educator, and womanist scholar—for a profound exploration of how histories linger in the body, shaping Black life through memory, resistance, and radical re-membering. Together, they delve into the ways colonialism, racial capitalism, and spatial segregation inscribe trauma across gen...

In this episode of Conscious Conversations, Mmabatho Montse speaks with legal practitioner and founder of Narratives for Justice, Mali Khantrece, to explore how law, when rooted in lived experience and historical consciousness, becomes a tool for liberation and healing. Mali shares her journey into law as an act of resistance, using narrative justice and death penalty mitigation to humanize those...

In this episode of Conscious Conversations, Mmabatho Montse speaks with herbalist, educator, and author Atava Garcia Swiecicki about ancestral medicine, chronic illness, and the Earth as a site of healing. Rooted in the traditions of curanderismo and Ubungoma, their conversation explores how plants, dreams, and ritual serve as portals to cultural memory and collective repair. Atava shares reflecti...

We begin this season with Prof. Monica Mody, whose work in decolonial, Indigenous, and women of colour paradigms and epistemologies activates ancestral memory and symbolic imagination. Our conversation explores mythological studies as a transdisciplinary lens through which education is reframed as a process of initiation. Rather than the transmission of information, education becomes an unfolding...

In this episode of Conscious Conversations with my sister Clara, we delved into the resilience required to live as a Black woman, committed to discovering her true identity and living her truth. This journey, often solitary, demands courage and a steadfast commitment to one's values. Yet, it is through this journey that we uncover the abundance and richness that the Divine offers. Visit our websit...

In this conversation, Austen Smith and I explore ways to regain our creative energy and use our imagination to project our way into the reality we desire for ourselves and all Black communities. By reclaiming our ancestral wisdom, resilience, and veneration for the Earth, we can harness this creative force. The radical imagination entails stepping outside the confines of the now and into the expan...

Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) have faced disproportionate levels of violence from state institutions, the persistent legacies of slavery and segregation, and economic injustice and displacement. For centuries, the cognitive, spiritual, emotional, and physical resources of BIPOC communities have been disproportionately depleted due to structural anti-Black racism and White supremac...

Settler colonialism in urban and rural landscapes in Africa has not only meant dispossession of land; it is also an ongoing system of power-use that has sought to homogenise, sterilise and decontextualise space and place. This linear way of thinking perpetuates the repression and genocide of peoples, and the exploitation of cultures, land and resources. It continues to alienate non-White people fr...

Societies across the globe are built on a dominant culture – an oppressive, violent, hurtful, exploitative and destructive fear-based culture that thrives on inequalities in terms of gender, race, class and income. Dominance as a cultural construct has for centuries had a strong presence in institutions, influencing the socio-political agenda and landscape of societies. Fear as a concept, especial...

In seeking to have a deep understanding of indigenous-Black identities, human and non-human, one cannot help but think about the ramifications and the intersections of anti-Black racism, slavery, gender inequality, colonialism, erasure, of history, fractured identities, sovereignty, land dispossession and violence. These issues are entangled with the spiritual, social, political and economic embod...

The world has been carved up by the great powers which have spiritually and economically dominated people, pushing them to strive for national dignity and nationhood. Ancestral wisdom and customs and traditional economics have been disrupted, and human energy and skills have been harnessed for the advantage of the conquerors and the disadvantage of the natural world. There are still people in the...

Our vision for Season 3 is centred around people of colour in Africa and the Diaspora. People of colour continue to suffer from the effects of structural racism and White supremacy. This structural discrimination and the subsequent stigmatisation have inflicted multiple traumas on people of colour that have developed into degenerative, fear-based ways of existing, causing a disconnection between r...

The African continent is rich with diverse cultures, indigenous knowledge systems, and technologies. Our culture involves our social behaviour and norms, our languages, knowledge, beliefs, traditions, arts, capacities, and habits. Over decades, we have seen the deliberate alienation and marginalization of African cultural values and traditions by the designs of colonialism and apartheid, which hav...

African people were uprooted from their long-standing indigenous agricultural way of life which involved maintaining a harmonious relationship between communities, nature, and traditional religious practices. These practices involved ceremonies, festivals, and rituals in alignment with the cycles of the seasons. Embodied, enacted, and reinforced in these traditions were sacred values communicated...

Astrology in Africa, as in other societies, has for many years been considered a form of divination that involves forecasting earthly and human events through the observation and interpretation of the Sun, the Moon, the fixed stars, and other planets. According to ancient practices originating from Mesopotamia, astrology shaped the perceptions and particular practices of society; informing their u...

African people have for many years lived having to suppress who they were, whether it be through the expression of their languages, traditions (enforcement of Christianity), culture (dance, song, style)... simply, their way of Being. There exist deep connections between Black South Africans and Americans because of our shared long history of racial segregation and white supremacy. Where entire soc...

Family constellations as an area of research can be found in modern psychology and in the indigenous ancestral reverence practices of the Nguni people. Family constellations is therapy based on the belief that energy, both negative and positive, can be found in familial bonds and can manifest as patterns of mental health concerns, illness, and potentially destructive behaviours within families. In...

Dr Baba Buntu is a Community Scholar and Decolonial Practitioner. He is also the founding director of eBukhosini Solutions, a people-centred company specializing in African-Centered Education. As a Pan-African educator, writer, researcher, mentor and counsellor, Baba Buntu has more than 30 years of experience in conceptualizing and implementing programs on cultural literacy, social/epistemic justi...

Quality education is said to promise highly developed and empowered individuals who can explore the peculiarities of their environment to obtain expertise and knowledge that will lead to innovation and advancement within a society. The word education is often referred to in the context of deliberate effort to equip the unequipped with facts, knowledge, skills and competencies that will enable them...

African culture is vast, vibrant and colourful. Africans are known for their warmth, vibrant culture, traditions, religions, food, art, dance, and music among many things. While it has been decades since African countries gained their independence from colonial rule and oppression, the legacies of colonisation continue to permeate society through different institutions and economic structures, whi...