Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
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' hard work rewarded
2013-05-01

Four student leaders on our Bloemfontein and Qwaqwa Campuses each received a scholarship of R15 000. Handré Hay, Estine Cronje, Tsepang Lenka and Jean Vermaas were rewarded for the positive impact they had on the student community in the past three years or more. Student Affairs' scholarship programme acknowledges the contribution of student leaders in the upliftment of the student community.

Read what the four have to say about leadership:

Handré Hay:

Handré Hay, a third-year BSc Physiotherapy student who holds several leadership positions on our Bloemfontein Campus, served for two consecutive years on the committee of Armentum residence. He was also a member of the executive council in the Students' Representative Council (SRC) and served in two SRC portfolios. "Leadership is about being able to serve. When people see that you are willing to put other people's interests above your own and that you are willing to serve unselfishly, despite a position of authority, you will get far," said Handré.

Estine Cronje:

Estine Cronje is the current prime of Marjolein residence. This was the second time the fifth-year Psychology student were re-elected to this position."Leadership is very important to me. One needs leaders in everything you do. I believe a leader should never think herself better than the rest and should work as hard as her team. She should command respect, be disciplined, an example to others, accessible and open to the opinions of other people.

Tsepang Lenka:

Tsepang Lenka is the SRC President of our Qwaqwa Campus. Tsepang, who was twice elected as prime of his residence, has already obtained his BA degree in Public and Business Management. He is currently working on his Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE). "To me leadership means to serve. As a leader you don't lie to people when things are taking the wrong direction, you stand firm and tell the truth; in that way, people don't lose trust in you. The scholarship inspires me to work even harder," Tsepang said.

Jean Vermaas:

Jean Vermaas is a former SRC member who is currently studying for his LLB degree. Some of Jean's achievements include leadership positions of the Juridical Society and the Broad Students' Transformation Forum. In 2012 he was a founder member of the Student Elders' Council."Leadership is of extreme importance to me. It formed me into the person I am now. Leadership isn't always easy, but in the challenges you face you grow as a leader and as an individual."

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