More about Andrew Pickup
Andrew came to Sussex in 2014 as a PhD student in International Development, having written an excellent dissertation on the microfinance crisis in Andhra Pradesh, India, for his master’s degree.
Andrew’s first email to his supervisors stated: ‘I’m excited to work with you to better understand the social impacts of microfinance and to hone my skills as a researcher’.That was precisely what Andrew went on to do. Andrew was keen to explore how microfinance operated in other parts of the world and, having worked in Africa and with close family links to South Africa, he decided to explore the effects of microfinance on the poor in the small town of Tzaneen, in the Limpopo Province of South Africa.
Andrew spent a year at Sussex, reading widely to produce a very successful research outline entitled ‘The Transformative Potential of Microfinance: Activism and Empowerment in Neoliberal South Africa.’ In his work, Andrew set out to research the impacts of microfinance initiatives on women borrowers as well as their potential for raising awareness, encouraging collective action and producing resistance, for example, against the spreading neoliberalism of the ANC. Andrew’s project was inherently a political one that closely dovetailed with other research conducted in the School of Global Studies. His political interests straddled poverty, collective action, gender and empowerment.
Andrew travelled with his wife and children to South Africa in March 2017, where they settled in Tzaneen to start fieldwork. By the time of his untimely death in August 2017, Andrew had conducted several months of field research in collaboration with a local MFI. During this time, he had collected some fascinating material – on over-indebtedness, defaulters, mediators and courts.
Throughout his studies, Andrews brought enormous enthusiasm and dedication to his project. He had great promise; to produce an outstanding thesis and make significant contributions to the field of international development. His loss is a great one – to his family and friends, the School of Global Studies and the world to which he sought to make a difference.