Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
22 February 2018 Photo Sonia Small
Histories of whites beyond whiteness the focus of inaugural lecture
Prof Hendri Kroukamp, Acting Vice-Rector, Academic, Prof Neil Roos, Professor in the Centre for Africa Studies, and Prof Heidi Hudson, Acting Dean: Faculty of The Humanities.

Growing up in a small milling village on the Natal South Coast sugar belt from the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, Prof Neil Roos was exposed to poverty, privilege, liberalism, and racism. He carved out a promising academic career at the University of Natal, initially on white communists and the anomaly they represented in South African society - researching their histories in the Springbok Legion, a radical wartime kind of ‘trade union’ for soldiers.

During his doctoral work with the University of the North-West, he shifted his attention from the small number of whites who defied segregation and apartheid, to the large numbers who did not, and he began to engage with historical and comparative approaches to race. He was also interested in the sense of comradeship shown by white war veterans in the village where he lived, which included his own father, and used this interest to investigate the kinds of networks white veterans developed, as well as their role in movements like the war veterans’ Torch Commando and the Memorable Order of Tin Hats (MOTH). He used this history to show how white people were able simultaneously to ’oppose’ apartheid, yet accept its core premise of racial supremacy.

Possibility, dismay, and challenge
During his inaugural lecture on 14 February 2018 at the University of the Free State (UFS), Prof Roos addressed issues that delivered new insights under his fresh and rigorous research approach. “I intended to plot how histories of whites in South Africa have been written during several big historiographic moves, with sub-titles ‘possibility’, ‘dismay’ and ‘challenge’.” In the first section, ‘possibility’, he dealt with the vibrant 1980s-vintage South African social history, arguing that social histories of whites were at looked in a rather simplistic way. In ‘dismay’ he looked at the rise of cultural studies of whites in the new millennium which, he argued, tend to be self-absorbed, ahistorical and outside of any rigorous critique of society as a whole. In ‘challenge’ he proposed that contemporary political concerns, notably demands of the decolonisation movement, should inspire a new, activist, anti-racist history of race which draws on some of the strengths of the earlier social history movement as well as some of the techniques developed during the 1990s and the millennium to understand power, ideology and representation.

A new approach
Prof Roos proposes that histories of whites must more properly be histories of race. “This history must show the production of racial categories, reflect on the moral historiographies of being white, and the kinds of dehumanisation this demanded. It must also identify how and where whites transgressed, defied, opposed, or were simply docile. It must be emphatically anti-racist, and must absolutely avoid the possibility of apologia, of trying to gloss over or present with a human face histories of whites under colonialism, segregation and apartheid.” He also argued for an historical approach to present-day iterations of racial identity occurrences of racism, racial supremacy and racial violence.

“I intended to plot how histories of whites
in South Africa have been written during
several big historiographic moves.”

In arguing for the democratisation of studies about whites, Prof Roos argued that it is inconceivable that only whites write about histories of whites. He pointed out that black scholars bring fresh insights to the study of race, and of whites, and appealed for funding to be made available to black scholars pursuing these angles.  

Prof Roos, who is the author of Ordinary Springboks: White Servicemen and Social Justice in South Africa, 1939-1961, has held fellowships at the University of Chicago, the University of Technology Sydney, Harvard and Notre Dame. He is a professor in the International Studies Group and co-directs the Prestige Scholars’ Programme. He is the author of Whites in Apartheid Society, due for publication by Indiana University Press in 2018.

 

News Archive

Student leaders 2012/13 announced
2012-08-30

Ready for the task - Sabelo Khumalo, SRC President of the Qwaqwa Campus and William Clayton, SRC President of the Bloemfontein Campus.
Photo: Johan Roux
31 August 2012

The 2012/13 elections for the Student Representative Councils (SRC) of the University of the Free State were completed successfully and show meaningful support for the changes in student governance adopted by students across campuses over the past two years.

The SRC elections at the Qwaqwa Campus were completed on 23 August 2012, while the elections at our Bloemfontein Campus took place on 27 and 28 August 2012.

The SRC Elections at our Bloemfontein Campus showed a voter turnout of 4516 votes (30.8%), with the elections at the Qwaqwa Campuses showing 1753 votes (46%) – both campuses reached the required quorums and the IEA (Bloemfontein Campus) and IEC (Qwaqwa Campus) declared the elections free and fair and announced the results as a true reflection of the will of the student bodies at the campuses.

The full SRC at Bloemfontein Campus now consists of 62% black and 38% white, and 53% female and 47% male members.

In the Qwaqwa elections, SADESMO achieved 46, 38% of the vote, with SASCO, PASMA and NASMO each achieving 30,23% and 8,39% and 14,26%, respectively.

The successful elections at Bloemfontein Campus show that the detailed transformation of student governance introduced by students at the Campus in 2010 and adopted by the university in 2011, succeeded in mobilizing greater participation of students in governance and representation. These changes in the main included a shift to independent candidacy for elective portfolios (12 seats) and organizational candidacy in nine sub-councils that holds ex officio seats on the SRC. Changes also included the establishment of student representative seats in faculty governance and management forums and the adoption of a reviewed Central SRC Constitution. Ex officio seats hold full and equal constitutional authority in the SRC.

Students at Qwaqwa Campus introduced additional portfolios to its SRC, including ex-officio seats for academic affairs, arts and culture, commuter students, Rag Community Service, religious affairs, residences and sports.

A joint sitting of the Campus SRCs will establish the Central SRC 2012/13 on 9 September 2012.

As a further opportunity for participation in and the development of student governance and representation, the current Central SRC herewith also announces its recent adoption of a student governance advisory programme, namely the UFS Student Elders Council (SEC).

The SEC is established as a combined programme between the Central SRC and the Dean of Student Affairs and will consist of selected senior student leaders from all campuses who completed their terms of office, apply and are appointed to the Elders Council by the Central SRC.

The Council will serve as an advisory structure to the Central SRC and other student structures in support of the continuous development of student governance and representation of the student body at the university.

The SEC will advise the Central SRC to be constituted following the constitution of the respective Campus SRCs.

The SRC members at the Bloemfontein Campus are:

President: Mr William Clayton

Vice-President: Mr Bonolo Thebe

Secretary: Ms Karis-Robin Topkin

Treasurer: Mr Pieter Coetzee

Arts & Culture: Ms Chanmari Erasmus

Accessibility & Student Support: Ms Gene McCaskill

First-generation Students: Ms Tanya Calitz

Legal and Constitutional Affairs: Ms Nokuthula Sithole

Media, Marketing & Liaison: Ms Neo Chere

Sport: Mr Tshepo Moloi

Student Development & Environmental Affairs: Ms Thabisile Mgadi

Transformation: Ms Koketso Mofokeng

Dialogue & Ex officio: Associations Council: Mr Anesu Ruswa

Academic Affairs & Ex officio: Academic Affairs Council: Ms Nombuso Ndlovu

Residence Affairs & Ex officio: Residences Council: Mr Johann Steyn

City Residence Affairs & Ex officio: Commuter Council: Mr Michael van Niekerk

Postgraduate Affairs & Ex officio: Postgraduate Council: Mr Fadeyi Akinsuyi

International Affairs & Ex officio: International Council: Ms Tumelo Moreri

Student Media Affairs & Ex officio: Media Council: Mr Jamal-Dean Grootboom

RAG Community Service & Ex officio: RAG Fundraising Council: Mr Jaco Faul

RAG Community Service & Ex officio: RAG Community Service Council: Ms Keneue Mahloana

The SRC members at the Qwaqwa Campus are:

President General: Mr S Khumalo

Deputy President: Mr P T Lenka

Secretary General: Mr D Khethang

Treasurer General: Mr S I Sithole

Media & Publicity: Mr S N Ntombela

Politics & Transformation: Tbc

Student Development & Evironmental Affairs: Tbc Academic Affairs: Mr T Molawude

Arts & Cultural Affairs: Mr T Nkohli

Off-Campus Students: Mr B Mtshali

RAG, Community Service & Dialogue: Ms S F Mlotya

Religious Affairs: Ms D C Khau

Residence & Catering Affairs: Ms Z Mzolo

Sports Council: Mr S Mngomezulu

We use cookies to make interactions with our websites and services easy and meaningful. To better understand how they are used, read more about the UFS cookie policy. By continuing to use this site you are giving us your consent to do this.

Accept