Deon Pretorius

Deon holds a PhD in Sociology from University of Warwick and was mentored by Margaret Archer. He is also an affiliated researcher for Jonkoping University.  He was full-time from 1984 to 2006 at the formerly University of Port Elizabeth (now Nelson Mandela University) as Lecturer and Professor in Sociology . From 1996 to 2006 he was the Director of the multi-disciplinary Institute for Development Planning and Research (IDPR) at the University of Port Elizabeth (UPE) and responsible for co-ordinating university research and engagement in industry and communities. During the late 1980s and 1990s Deon was active in the Anti-Apartheid Movement as a leader and co-founder of the UPE branch of the Union for Democratic University Staff Associations (UDUSA); a trade union in Higher Education Sector. He spent a year (2000-2001) as a Visiting Professor at the University of Washington where he worked on university partnerships with communities in the Native Indian (First Nation) Reserves. From 2006 he is the owner of a research and development company called Development Partners and from 2007 he has been a part-time Professor in Development Studies at Nelson Mandela University (NMU). Deon has conducted and managed research in multiple disciplines and fields. He is a specialist in community socio-economic development and community economic development in urban and rural communities. Over the last 24 years he worked on projects involving more than 100 local communities across the Eastern Cape.  He also worked with several international companies and organizations including German Government, through KfW-Entwicklungsbank and the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). In 2018 to 2020 he was the Researcher Co-ordinator of Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality / Gothenburg (Sweden) Municipal Partnership project. Most of his current work involves the researching and applying different ways of implementing the Morphogenetic Approach (adapted from the work of Archer) to local development. A good example of this work is the formation of a Developmental Collaborative in the Sundays River Valley (Eastern Cape, South Africa) that become an effective vehicle for overcoming excessive local conflict and the promoting of community-led development. During 2023 he developed a course in Global Analysis and Political Leadership for the Trinity Western University in Canada. He has worked with the  International Centre for Local Democracy (ICLD) (Stockholm) as mentor for Swedish/South African municipality partnerships since 2021. He is currently (2023) the main author of an Economic Development and Growth Strategy for the Nelson Mandela Municipality and regularly contributes to the local development dialogues in the popular media.  

There are approximately 500 publications, report, presentations and media items in Deon’s CV. Here are a selection of recent presentations and media items:

• Morphogenetic Development as a Paradigm for Development.  a Presentation at Jönköping Municipality. May 2023                     
• Morphogenetic Development as a Paradigm for Local Development in the Nelson Mandela Bay. Municipality. Presentation to Economic Development, Tourism and Agriculture Directorate. February 2022   
• A Morphogenetic Approach to Socio-Economic Development. Presentation in Pan-African Conference on Leadership. 25 March 2021. Trinity Western University, Vancouver, Canada

Media Items:

• How a New Social Compact Can Work https://www.businesslive.co.za
• Why the Nordic Model is an Excellent Framework for Local Development https://www.theiicd.org
• Three Pressing Problems That Can Be Tackled To Transform South Africa https://www.businesslive.co.za
• Collaborative Local Government Needed; Not Toxic Competitive Interests https://www.news24.com
• How Do We Manage South Africa’s Culture of Destruction https://www.news24.com/news24
• Changing Mindsets and the Conditions that Feed Destructive Protest https://www.news24.com