Mandisa Lusanda Shandu
Mandisa Lusanda Shandu is a South African human rights lawyer currently pursuing a Ph.D. in Law at the University of Oxford. Her work focuses on land redistribution as a prerequisite for justice and freedom.
Mandisa’s research interrogates the function of property law in the context of deepening racial, gendered, spatial and economic inequality. As a lawyer, she has been involved in strategic impact litigation cases relating to constitutional, property, spatial planning, housing, and human rights law, administrative justice, and access to basic services. She is especially interested in innovative and multi-pronged strategies to advocate for long-term structural change. She has collaborated in these efforts with activists and social movements, economists, politicians, policymakers, creatives, artists, academics, and urban planning and design practitioners.
Previously, Mandisa practised as an attorney and served as executive director at Ndifuna Ukwazi (NU), a Cape Town-based nongovernmental organisation and pro bono law centre working to advance human rights and social justice, with a focus on access to land and affordable, dignified housing. Before serving as executive director, she founded and led NU’s Law Centre, becoming the first Black woman to establish a public interest litigation unit in South Africa.
Mandisa holds a master’s degree in Constitutional and Administrative Law (with distinction), and an LLB and Bachelor of Social Sciences from the University of Cape Town. She currently sits on the boards of the Land and Accountability Research Centre, the Socio-Economic Rights Institute and the Social Change Assistance Trust.