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14 December 2020 | Story André Damons
Dr WA Lombard
Dr WA Lombard from the Department of Agricultural Economics in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences was a winner of the Joseph F Donnermeyer New Scholar Award from the International Society for the Study of Rural Crime.

A researcher and lecturer from the University of the Free State (UFS) Department of Agricultural Economics has received an international award for his research on the economic impact of stock theft in South Africa.

Dr WA Lombard from this department in the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences was announced as the winner of the Joseph F Donnermeyer New Scholar Award from the International Society for the Study of Rural Crime (ISSRC) earlier this month (December 2020).

Award for an early-career researcher

Dr Lombard received the award for the research he conducted for the article: ‘Economic impact and factors affecting sheep and goat theft in South Africa’, published in Acta Criminologica: African Journal of Criminology & Victimology. The award is bestowed on an early-career researcher for a publication pertaining to rural criminology during the past 12 months. An early-career researcher is someone who has received a PhD within the past seven years and is showing stable research development.

“Winning this award is a very big honour for me. You always wonder if others view the research you are doing as important. It makes it even more special knowing that researchers from around the world could have won this award. I didn’t think I stood a chance,” said Dr Lombard.

According to him, this was the first award he had entered for after being encouraged by Mr Willie Clark from UNISA’s School for Criminal Justice and chairperson of the Stock Theft Prevention Forum.

Rural-crime research receiving attention

“It is great to know that research conducted by the UFS is considered valuable and of good quality by researchers around the world. It is also good to know that rural-crime research is receiving attention. Many feel this field of research is being neglected,” added Dr Lombard.

The award is named after ISSRC president, Joe Donnermeyer, and acknowledges his many years of work, his pioneering role in rural criminology as a sub-discipline, and his strong and ongoing support and mentorship for emerging academics.

• The other winner is Dr Kate Farhall of the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Melbourne Technical College in Australia.

News Archive

‘Captivating, powerful’ exhibition debuts at UFS
2016-08-29

Description: Sue Williamson exibition Tags: Sue Williamson exibition

Sue Williamson, What is this thing called freedom?, 2016 (two-channel video, 19min 25s)

A new exhibition by internationally-recognised artist, Sue Williamson, entitled No More Fairytales, was launched in the Johannes Stegmann Gallery on the Bloemfontein Campus of the University of the Free State (UFS) on 18 August 2016. The exhibition takes the audience on an exploration into the long-term effects of South Africa’s violent past.

No More Fairytales features two new video works. In It’s a pleasure to meet you, Candice Mama and Siyah Mgoduka—whose fathers were killed by Eugene de Kock—talk about living with loss, holding, on, and letting go. The other video, What is this thing called freedom?, draws the audience into a conversation between three generations of women in the Siwani family, who talk about the humiliations of apartheid, student unrest in the 1980s, and the recent #FeesMustFall protests.

“It’s all about opening up conversations.”

Both of these works have already been invited to participate in international exhibitions, the first of which, Un Autre Continent, opens in Le Havre, France, in September 2016. The videos will appear in 2017 in Without Drums and Trumpets—100 Years of War, also in France. The exhibition will run until 16 September 2016 at the UFS.

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Sue Williamson, It's a pleasure to meet you, 2016 (two-channel video, 25min)

“There is such an energy to this large piece of work; there is something captivating, something powerful about its vibrancy,” said Prof Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Senior Research Professor in Trauma, Forgiveness and Reconciliation Studies at the UFS. The series was commissioned by Prof Gobodo-Madikizela as part of the project, ‘Trauma, Memory and Representations of the Past: Transforming Scholarship in the Humanities and the Arts’. The five-year research project is funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation through a grant of R10 million.

The launch of the exhibition was followed the next morning by an insightful dialogue session between Prof Gobodo-Madikizela, Mama, Mgoduka, Williamson, and the audience. “It’s all about opening up conversations and trying to bring out things that have been so painful and so hurtful in this country,” Williamson said.

 

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