About
the name
Between Depth and Height
I write from the space between two realms that both unsettle and inspire me: deep water and soaring heights. These are places of tension that lie between retreat and exploration, certainty and risk. They have become the metaphor and method behind Altum*.
Altum reflects a dual movement. It is the courage to enter complexity, and the discipline to elevate what is found there into clarity, language, and direction.
*Altum, from the Latin altus, describing vertical distance upward or downward; rooted in alo, to imply growing high or having great depth.
the person
Where I Write From
I am a sociologist and writer working at the intersection of wealth inequality, youth wellbeing, and social exclusion. Having grown up as a queer person of colour in apartheid South Africa, my work is rooted in lived experience of structural marginalisation and economic injustice.
For over fifteen years, I have worked across academia, global health, philanthropy, and multilateral institutions, combining research, policy engagement, and impact storytelling. My sociology training provides analytical depth, while my writing practice translates that depth into language that moves across sectors.
I am particularly interested in how inequality becomes normalised, especially where relative privilege obscures ongoing harm. My work asks difficult questions and resists simplified narratives.
the method
The Altum Approach
Altum is my way of working.
In professional contexts, I immerse myself in research, strategy, institutional complexity, and programme design. But I do not stop at analysis. I look for the narrative architecture, the underlying purpose, tension, and possibility that give strategy its force.
Creative writing sharpens this process. Essays, ethnographic work, and fiction cultivate attentiveness to nuance, contradiction, and shared humanity. They resist reduction. They build empathy.
Through Altum, analytical rigor and imaginative insight operate together. Depth generates understanding. Elevation generates direction.
the commitment
What Connects It All
Across research, strategy, and creative practice, one commitment remains constant: to resist easy narratives.
I believe writing can interrogate power, challenge complacency, and open space for more honest conversation. By entering complexity with courage and returning with clarity, Altum seeks to reveal what connects us, even across difference.
It is a practice of descent and ascent
Of understanding and articulation
Of language that brings vision to life.