Ruth Murambadoro


Ruth Ratidzai Murambadoro is a Zimbabwean political scientist and African feminist scholar, whose research explores transitional justice, gender justice, and peacebuilding in Africa.
Murambadoro is currently an Assistant Professor of Gender Studies at Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada.

Early Life and education

Murambadoro earned her PhD in Political Science from the University of Pretoria in 2018, focusing on tradition-based approaches to transitional justice in Zimbabwe. She also holds an MA in Political Science, a BA Honours in International Relations, and a Bachelor of Political Sciences from the same institution.

Academic career

Murambadoro joined Memorial University of Newfoundland in 2024 as an Assistant Professor in Gender Studies. She previously served as a Postdoctoral Fellow at York University, affiliated with the Harriet Tubman Institute and the Centre for Feminist Research. From 2019 to 2021, she was a Senior Lecturer at the University of the Witwatersrand.
She has also been affiliated with Philipps University of Marburg in Germany as a guest researcher at the Centre for Conflict Research.
She has conducted ethnographic studies in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Mozambique, and Ghana, where she examined how community-based and tradition-based justice mechanisms operate and how women resist structural violence.
She collaborated with Ugandan scholar and editorial cartoonist Jimmy Spire Ssentongo on African and transnational feminisms through a panel discussion and creative exhibition events hosted by York University’s Centre for Feminist Research in October 2025.

Contributions

Murambadoro received the ASA Presidential Fellowship in 2015 and served as an Emerging Scholar representative on the African Studies Association Board of Directors in 2016.
Murambadoro's book, Transitional Justice in Africa: The Case of Zimbabwe, has been recognized for exploring how justice is understood and applied in African contexts, emphasizing local and community-based approaches to post-conflict reconciliation.

Selected publications

  • “Beyond restorative justice: Understanding justice from an African perspective,” Ubuntu: Journal of Conflict and Social Transformation, 9, 2020, pp. 43–69.
  • “‘We cannot reconcile until the past has been acknowledged’: Perspectives on Gukurahundi from Matabeleland, Zimbabwe,” African Journal on Conflict Resolution, 15, 2015, pp. 33–57.