Decolonialisation and decoloniality webinar

Dear colleagues and students

As part of the university’s transformation efforts, we will host a webinar to explore decolonialisation and decoloniality at UCT this month. The webinar will explore different moments in different parts of the non-Western world around the emergence of decolonial thought and discourse. We will have discussions looking at decolonisation in the context of UCT’s Vision 2030.

The webinar will cover the following topics:

• centre/ing decolonial, African, feminist psychological knowledge
• archaeological sites and visits as laboratories of local knowledge: towards community-based research experimentation and beneficiation in the global south
• the de-colonial imperative within the context of South African studies.

The speakers are the four UCT academics who received decolonialisation grants in 2017 – Associate Professor Shose Kessi, Professor Floretta Boonzaier, Professor Shadreck Chirikure and Dr Lwazi Lushaba – who will present their work.

Dean of Humanities and co-director of the Hub for Decolonial Feminist Psychologies in Africa, Associate Professor Kessi’s research centres on political psychology, community participation and mobilisation. A key focus is the development of photovoice methodology as a participatory action research tool that can raise consciousness and mobilise community groups into social action.

Head of UCT’s Archaeological Materials Laboratory Professor Chirikure’s research combines techniques from humanities and social sciences with those from hard sciences to explore ancient African technologies, relating them to wider political economies of precolonial societies.

Professor Boonzaier is the co-director of the Hub for Decolonial Feminist Psychologies in Africa. Her focus is on feminist, critical and decolonial psychologies with emphasis on subjectivity, race, gender, sexuality, gendered and sexual violence as well as feminist decolonial methodologies.

Lastly, Dr Lushaba, a lecturer in the Political Science department, will present on his research titled De-colonial imperative within the context of South Africa: An African perspective. His publications include a co-edited book ‘From National Liberation to Democratic Renaissance’ and a book titled ‘Development as Modernity, Modernity as Development’. He is currently working on a book manuscript on the history of South African social sciences beginning from the 1700s.

The webinar will be followed by a panel discussion on decolonialisation in the UCT environment. It is open to all.

When: Tuesday, 22 September 2020

Time: 10:00

Platform: Microsoft Teams. Please register for the event.

Please join us as we explore this critical subject of decolonisation and decoloniality.

Sincerely

Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng
Vice-Chancellor

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