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18 September 2018 Photo Charl Devenish
Students urged to help combat crime
What to do in case of an attack? The UFS taekwondo team taught students a trick or two.
Speaking at the official opening of Safety Week, newly elected Student Representative Council (SRC) president of the Bloemfontein Campus called for students to come to the party in the fight against crime. “We encourage students to participate because it cannot just be the SRC, university management, and the police. Students need to join the Community Police Forum because these platforms are there for us to engage in. You must not die in silence, if there is a problem, raise it,” said Sonwabile Dwaba.

The University of the Free State’s (UFS) Protection Services in collaboration with the university’s BSafe campaign hosted the Safety Week from 3-6 September 2018 on the Bloemfontein and South campuses with the objective of keeping students and staff members informed on the measures in place, addressing pressing safety-related concerns, brainstorm ideas on how to beef up security, and distributing safety souvenirs.

Collaborative efforts encouraged

Brigadier Maehlo Lento, reporting on behalf of the South African Police Service (SAPS) Provincial Commissioner, said: “Robbery incidents have subsided but we still need to make sure that we continue and collaborate with students and all other roleplayers to make sure that we sustain the safety.”

The collective participation sentiment was also reflected by Prof Prakash Naidoo, Vice-Rector: Operations. “We are hoping through our annual Safety Week to reiterate our commitment to the safety of students, as well as bringing all roleplayers together to reflect on areas of cooperation and collaboration in an effort to improve the safety of student.”

Not just physical safety

Issues of mental health were discussed by the Next Chapter student organisation, while Embrace a Sister student organisation spoke about femicide and the safety of women. The scourge of gender-based violence formed the focal point of the Gender and Sexual Equity office’s address. In addition the Student Counselling and Development division offered invaluable advice on where those who exhibit symptoms of depression can seek help.

Other stakeholders who contributed to the success of this year’s Safety Week were the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, Department of Police, Roads and Transport, as well as Sector 3 Community Police Forum. 

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Prof Helene Strauss delves into the emotion and politics of contemporary South African protest cultures
2014-12-22

Prof Helene Strauss from the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Department of English currently researches the relationship between emotion and politics in contemporary South African public and protest cultures.

The research foregrounds the complex set of concerns opened up by a study of intimacy, read as not simply a sign for emotional and sexual closeness, but more broadly as a complexly mediated site from which to observe the embodied, affective coordinates of various forms of control and contestation. Through the analysis of a range of cultural texts that, for instance, recompose moments of spectacular social upheaval through the lenses of everyday, embodied experience, this research considers what aesthetic responsibility might mean in both post-transitional South Africa and elsewhere.

One aspect of this research charts a gradual shift in South Africa from what is frequently referred to as the ‘liberation euphoria’ of the mid- to late 1990s – and the optimistic fantasies of a future South Africa that characterised dominant public discourse in the period immediately following the political transition – toward an emotional culture in which expressions of anger, disillusionment and disappointment seem to have become relatively widespread.

Prof Strauss asks, for instance, how these public feelings have been managed in the aftermath of events such as the Marikana massacre, and suggests that the affective and temporal dimensions of current attempts at containing perceived threats to financial and political stability on the part of South Africa’s business and political elite are key to understanding increasingly violent and repressive securitisation strategies.

Earlier this year, Prof Strauss presented papers on aspects of this research at two international conferences: (i) the Association for Cultural Studies conference in Tampere, Finland, where she was invited to be part of a ‘Spotlight Panel’ on the topic of African Cultural Studies, (ii) and at a conference at McMaster University in Hamilton, Canada, which she helped to co-organise.

An article based on some of this work has been published in the journal Safundi.

For more of Prof Strauss’s research published in journals, follow the links below:
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rsaf20/current#.VAf88_mSxqU
http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/riij20/15/1#.VAf80vmSxqU
http://www.palgrave-journals.com/sub/journal/v4/n2/index.html

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