Fikile Vilakazi
University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Biography
Fikile Vilakazi is a traditional health practitioner from South Africa. She is currently studying for a Doctor of Social Science Degree majoring in Social Policy at the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland. Her former degrees in Development Studies were obtained from the University of the Western Cape in South Africa. Her current research interests include the regulation of traditional medicines, the role and participation of traditional healers during the regulation process. She is also keen to investigate training methods in the education and teaching standards of traditional medicines from different parts of the globe particularly in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa [BRICS] countries. Her recent publications include a paper titled ‘Facts are tenacious’-interweaving power pedagogy in social capital theory to galvanise participatory development: A critique. This paper resulted from a research on the regulation of traditional medicines and participation in South Africa that she conducted in 2013. She is also about to publish another paper from that research titled Regulation of African Traditional Medicines and public participation: empirical evidence from South Africa.