Bothwell Vumai is a PhD candidate at the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS), Wits University. He holds a BSc Honors in Political and Administrative Studies (University of Zimbabwe), BA Honours and MA (by Dissertation) in Migration and Displacement Studies (Wits University). His Master’s project was an explorative study on Mozambican migrant women’s interface with mission-run and state-owned hospitals on maternal health care provision in a Zimbabwean borderland. His research interests are in migration and health, public policy, governance, social justice, marginal spaces and subjectivities.
Vumai’s doctoral research project is titled: ‘Cross-border Sex Work on the Urban Margins: The Politics of Access to PrEP in Gauteng region’. Guided by the Spaces of Vulnerability conceptual framework, the research is aimed at demystifying and unpacking the politics that shape and inform undocumented female sex workers’ negotiation and navigation of Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) access on the urban margins of the Gauteng province. It investigates the power dynamics as well as the role of identity politics, race, gender and migration status in influencing PrEP access and utilisation among undocumented immigrant sex workers in Gauteng’s urban marginal spaces.