Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items

ISG researcher awarded prestigious Colin Murray Prize

13 November 2020 | Story Charlene Stanley | Photo Supplied

Dr Innocent Dande_web read more — Dr Innocent Dande, UFS ISG scholar, has been named the 2021 winner of the JSAS Colin Murray Prize for his research on food politics in Zimbabwe.

Dr Innocent’s Dande’s research on the everyday food struggles experienced by residents of poor suburbs in Harare, Zimbabwe, has earned him a coveted research prize from the London-based Journal of Southern African Studies (JSAS) – the leading international journal in its field.

Start of extended book project

“Winning this award means a great deal for my career plans, especially as I am planning to come up with an extended book project that looks at working classes’ eating habits and foodscapes, or the geographies of food, cooking and eating in lower class suburbs,” says an excited Dr Dande. His aim is to write a sensorial history of how the working classes ate and enjoyed food in Zimbabwean cities between 1980 and 2019.

“One advantage is that this prize provides me with funding to carry out research. If the JSAS is satisfied with the outcome, their tradition is to publish it,” he says.

Not deterred by lockdown

Dr Dande arrived at the UFS at the same time the COVID-19 lockdown was announced, which saw many of his colleagues hastily returning to their home countries. His decision to stay indirectly led to his application.

“I was spending so much of my time in my room at Kovsie Inn during Level one of the lockdown. Applying for this grant was a way of dealing with the boredom that comes with locking oneself in for too long,” he explains.

His application was titled, Cooking, the crisis and cuisines: household economies and food politics in Harare (Zimbabwe), 1997-2020, with much of his research focusing on everyday issues affecting ordinary people, in contrast to “high politics and many other topics that ordinarily shout for more attention.” His aim is to write a social history of the Zimbabwean crisis, focusing on “mundane issues such as the cooking and eating of food.”

Colin Murray Prize background

Colin Murray was a sociologist, anthropologist, and political economist who passed away in October 2013. He taught at various universities in the UK and South Africa and had a special interest in family histories. Carrying a purse of £2 500, the Colin Murray Prize is awarded to an applicant who is within two years of completing his or her PhD, and is meant to assist the winner in engaging in original research in Murray’s fields of interest.

ISG an intellectually enriching environment

The COVID-19 pandemic may have restricted physical interactions with colleagues, but Dr Dande says he still found the International Studies Group (ISG) an intellectually enriching place.

“The ISG continued to hold regular and interesting Zoom seminars. Many of my colleagues have also won very prestigious prizes and are in different stages of completing their various projects. Many others have also published in the same journal (JSAS) and many other high-impact journals.”

He highly values the generous professional advice from his fellow researchers, as well as the input and feedback of ISG Head, Prof Ian Phimister.

“The ISG has shown me that it is possible to dream big and to even contemplate applying for jobs anywhere in the world and not just in Southern Africa,” says Dr Dande.

News Archive

UFS can lead SA in race relations - Ramphele

2010-08-06

Pictured are: Dr Boesak and Dr Ramphele
Photo: Mangaliso Radebe

The University of the Free State (UFS) could well be a perfect model of excellence in race relations that the whole of South Africa could emulate.

This was said by Dr Mamphela Ramphele, the first African to be a Managing Director of the World Bank, during the Anti-Racism Network in Higher Education (ARNHE) Colloquium held at the UFS recently.

“Healing circles need to be constructed on this campus to address issues raised by the Reitz incident,” she said.

“You might yet be the pioneer of what needs to happen on a nation-wide level.

“Can we confidently commit today to go on this quest for a true humanity and walk together as fellow citizens and strive for a more human face for our society? That is our challenge. That is what the UFS is called to give leadership to.”

“It is this human face which has the power to liberate us from the body of death and strengthen us in our struggle for meaningful life together in South Africa,” added one of the main speakers, Dr Allan Boesak, a cleric and former anti-apartheid activist.

However, said Dr Ramphele, this could only be achieved if all South Africans, black and white, abandoned the fear for each other that was hindering, if not stalling, progress in this regard.

“Fear of each other is the most important impediment to the sustainability of our journey into a society united in our diversity,” she said.

“People in this country are afraid to stand up and be counted, including many vice-chancellors and clerics. They are afraid of being seen to be difficult, and that is a major problem. Fear is the most destructive emotion that you can have because it makes you really incompetent and unable to respond to challenges.”

She said the biggest impediment, though, to ending racism was denial. “White people deny vehemently that they are or have ever been racist,” she said.

“We need to go through a process of acknowledging our wounds and scars from our racist past and present missteps in public policy.”

“Instead of saying they are sorry, those who are conscious of their whiteness should rather say what they are sorry for,” said another main speaker, Prof. Dennis Francis, the Dean of the Faculty of Education at the UFS.

On the other hand, according to Dr Boesak, blacks were and still are, to a large extent, also to blame for their own ongoing oppression. “The key here was the acknowledgement of our sheepish timidity, our complicity,” he said.

The Chairperson of ARNHE, Prof. Norman Duncan, had this to say: “If we are to confront and eradicate racism in higher education institutions, we should not do so to create comfort zones for ourselves.”

The theme of this ARNHE Colloquium was Black consciousness and those conscious of their whiteness. It was presented by the International Institute for Studies in Race, Reconciliation and Social Justice at the UFS.

Media Release:
Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za
6 August 2010

Back

Economic and Management Sciences

Education

Health Sciences

The Humanities

Law

Natural and Agricultural Sciences

Theology and Religion

Open Distance Learning

Business School

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