Gillian Schutte: Editor-in-Chief

Gillian Schutte is an award-winning filmmaker, writer, poet, activist and author whose work engages questions of political economy, media power, decolonial thought and Global South sovereignty. She holds a degree in African Politics, an MA in Creative Writing, and a Film Director’s qualification from the Binger Film Institute in the Netherlands.

Together with her life partner, Sipho Singiswa, Schutte received the Award of Excellence for their documentary at the Society for Visual Anthropology Festival in Washington in 2005. Their collaborative work as filmmakers and journalists has examined social justice struggles, labour conditions, environmental conflicts and the lived realities of communities situated along South Africa’s mining belt. Through documentary film and long-form journalism they have consistently worked alongside marginalised communities, documenting the intersection between extractive industries, environmental degradation and the rights of workers and residents.

Schutte is also the author of the novel After Just Now, a work that explores South African life through layered narrative and political consciousness. Alongside her creative writing she has produced extensive political commentary and investigative journalism addressing the ideological structures shaping contemporary public discourse.

Over three decades her work has engaged with questions of media capture, Western donor influence, geopolitical power and the political economy of energy. She writes frequently on the emerging multipolar order and the shifting global balance of power, with particular attention to the roles of Russia, China, Iran and the wider BRICS+ bloc in reshaping international relations. Her writing situates African political experience within broader global transformations while examining how narrative power and media institutions shape political perception.

Her work frequently explores these questions through the framework of African epistemology, Black Consciousness thought and African cosmology, engaging the relationship between culture, power, law and historical memory in contemporary political life.

Schutte’s journalism has appeared in major South African publications and international platforms where she has become known for her forthright critique of liberal media orthodoxy, donor-driven civil society structures and the ideological framing of African political life within Western geopolitical narratives.

In 2025 she was recognised at World Atomic Week with the Rosatom Award for her journalism engaging debates on energy sovereignty and nuclear energy policy.

She is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Counterhegemon, a decolonial news and analysis platform dedicated to counter-hegemonic writing, African epistemologies, constitutional and jurisprudential debate, and Global South perspectives on geopolitics. Through the platform she seeks to create a serious intellectual space for long-form analysis, political philosophy and strategic commentary that confronts dominant ideological narratives while advancing new frameworks for sovereignty, justice and social transformation.

Schutte’s work moves between journalism, filmmaking, literature and political analysis, guided by a long-standing commitment to intellectual independence and the defence of African narrative sovereignty.

Follow Gillian on Twitter: @GillianSchutte1

Follow Gillian on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gillian.schutte1

Sipho Singiswa

Sipho Singiswa is an ex-political prisoner from Robben Island.  He has a background rich in political activism and is a social justice activist and filmmaker.  His major focus is on social justice rights and equality as well as reclaiming the black narrative through a black lens.  Even the struggle story has been owned and commodified by white directors and business owners.  Sipho’s passion is to provide platforms from which black people speak for themselves and own their own agency and narratives.  He is anchor and founder of the online TV and Radio Program The Social Justice Lens. He is Co-Founder of Media for Justice.

Nigel Branken

Nigel Branken is a social worker, pastor, and activist based in Johannesburg. He writes at the intersection of faith and justice, drawing from his own journey of decolonising theology and confronting inherited systems of power. A former church leader turned community organiser, Nigel’s work challenges both church and state to reckon with the legacies of racism, inequality, and exclusion. His reflections are grounded in lived experience—as a father, a witness to injustice, and a committed advocate for liberation. Through his columns, he invites readers into deeper solidarity, radical compassion, and a faith that disrupts rather than comforts the status quo.