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07 September 2020 | Story Leonie Bolleurs | Photo Supplied
With the research grant awarded to Dr Thulisile Mphambukeli, she has the opportunity to make a difference in society, especially in terms of the incorporation of social justice into planning.
The Joint National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS) and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) research projects have awarded a R500 000 research grant to a team led by Dr Thulisile Mphambukeli, the principal investigator (PI). 

Within the parameters of the theme of social justice, sustainable development, and quality of life, Dr Mphambukeli’s team will focus their research on exploring the land policies in BRICS that inform agricultural practices. They will also document the policy approaches and strategies adopted by China and South Africa respectively to support the agriculture-land-water-labour nexus; additionally, they will propose a common agricultural land policy for China and South Africa. 

The title of the research project is: Exploring the Situated Political Ecology and Economy of Agricultural Land Policies in BRICS: A Case Study of China and South Africa. 

Dr Mphambukeli, who is passionate about social justice, is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the University of the Free State (UFS). With this project, she has the opportunity to make a difference in society, especially in terms of social justice. 

 

We don’t want to see the next generation suffer because we did not use our voice.- Dr Thulisile Mphambukeli

The human factor is crucial

“We need to understand the dynamics of local communities. The incorporation of social justice in planning is crucial! We cannot claim that we ‘plan for people’ and ignore them at the same time. People must be at the centre of what we do. No one must be deprived of their fundamental basic human rights.”

The team consists of Dr Mphambukeli (PI), Prof Peliwe Lolwana (University of the Witwatersrand), Dr Victor Okorie (Enugu State University of Science and Technology, Nigeria), and Dr Abraham Matamanda (UFS).

For this initiative, the China Africa Institute (CAI), which is part of CASS, joined hands with the NIHSS. Together, they will oversee the research projects of researchers and academics from South Africa and China. The research project, running from 1 April this year to 31 March 2021, will bring forth publications/research outputs, advocacy policy briefs, and proceeding reports.

The programme aims to strengthen research in the field of the humanities and social sciences between the two countries. 

Support the fight against climate change

She believes that although the BRICS countries are not geographically connected, it is a functional community with the same interests. “As BRICS countries, we need to cooperate in the fight against climate change. It affects so many components, including water, food, agriculture, land, and quality of infrastructure,” says Dr Mphambukeli. 

Due to the current COVID-19 pandemic, researchers will meet online to discuss how China and South Africa can collaborate and cooperate. “We don’t want to see the next generation suffer because we did not use our voice,” she says. 

News Archive

'Structures of Dominion and Democracy' by David Goldblatt at the Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery
2015-08-03

Photograph by David Goldblatt, On August 16 2012 South African Police shot striking mineworkers of the Lonmin platinum mines, killing 34 and wounding 78 within a radius of 350 metres of this koppie, where the men used to meet. Seventeen of the men, seeking shelter among boulders from police fire, were shot with seemingly lethal intent, some with their hands up in surrender, none were given medical assistance for their wounds. Beyond is the Lonmin smelter, which stood idle during the strike. Marikana, North-West Province, 11 May 2014.

The University of the Free State, in partnership with the Goodman Gallery, presents the exhibition, 'Structures of Dominion and Democracy', by renowned South African photographer David Goldblatt.  

This exhibition, which runs from 13 July to 7 August 2015 on the Bloemfontein Campus, is dedicated to the series, “Structures”, one of the major bodies of works by Goldblatt.  For over three decades, Goldblatt has travelled South Africa, photographing sites and structures weighted with historical narrative: monuments, private, religious and secular, which reveal something about the people who built them.  These sites allow us a glimpse into the everyday. Each place is a repository, a landscape containing an epic story that has involved whole communities: the experience sometimes told through the memorialising of remarkable individuals.

The exhibition, Structures of Dominion and Democracy, traverses two distinct eras in South Africa history. As Goldblatt explains: "Over the years, I have photographed South African structures, which I found eloquent, of the dominion which Whites gradually came to exert over all of South Africa and its peoples.  That time of domination began in 1660 when Jan van Riebeeck ordered a cordon to be erected of blockhouses and barriers that would exclude the indigenous population from access to the first European settlement in South Africa and its herds, lands, water, and grazing.  The time of domination ended on the 2nd of February 1990, when, on behalf of the government and the Whites of South Africa, President FW de Klerk effectively abdicated from power.  Beginning in 1999 and continuing to the present, I have photographed some structures that are eloquent of our still nascent democracy.  In the belief that, in what we build we express much about what we value, I have looked at South African structures as declarations of our value systems, our ethos.”

Johannes Stegmann Art Gallery, UFS Sasol Library
University of the Free State
206 Nelson Mandela Ave
Bloemfontein

Gallery hours:  
Monday to Friday 08:30 – 16:30

Entrance: Free
Enquiries: 051 401 2706, dejesusav@ufs.ac.za

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