Latest News Archive

Please select Category, Year, and then Month to display items
Categories
UFS News Media Release Research
Years
2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Months
January February March April May June July August September October November December
Previous Archive
13 January 2021 Photo Supplied
Indigenous Oral traditions should be explored

Two researchers from the University of the Free State (UFS) aim with their research to examine the portrayal of environmental conservation in oral stories from indigenous South African cultures. They also hope to add the under-researched genres of oral cultures to mainstream inter-/cross-/multi-disciplinary inquiries on environmentalism, the climate crisis, conservation and indigenous knowledge systems.  

Dr Oliver Nyambi, Senior Lecturer in the Department of English, and Dr Patricks Voua Otomo, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Zoology and Entomology, interdisciplinary research project titled; Environmentalism in South African oral cultures: an indigenous knowledge system approach, started in 2017. The research is about indigenous South African oral culture as a potential knowledge system in which indigenous forms of environmental awareness is simultaneously circulated and archived.

Understanding oral folk stories

According to Dr Nyambi the research brings together the disciplines of cultural and environmental studies, inquiring into the relationship between indigenous knowledge mediated by oral culture, and environmental awareness. “Our main interest is how we can understand folk oral stories about humanity’s interactions with the environment as creating possibilities for knowing how traditional societies consciously thought about environmental conservation, preserving plant and animal species, and sustaining ecological balance,” says Dr Nyambi

The project has been on hold since 2018 as Dr Nyambi took up a two-and-a-half-year Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship in Germany. It will resume in earnest upon his return to South Africa at the end of February 2021. The duo’s first article on the “Zulu environmental imagination” has since received favorable peer reviews in the reputable journal African Studies Review published by Cambridge University Press.

The aim and impact of the research

Focusing on oral stories from the Zulu, Sotho and Tsonga traditions, the study seeks to understand what, in the stories as well as modes of their transmission, reflects certain consciousness, knowledge and histories of African indigenous environmentalism before the advent of Western forms of conservation. A key dimension to the project is the focus on how indigenous knowledge about the environment and its conservation was/is shared and consequently preserved through storytelling, explains Dr Nyambi.

“We envision our research to spotlight the potential but currently untapped utility of oral cultures in conservation. Our field work in rural KwaZulu-Natal revealed a rich tradition of environmental knowledge, environmental awareness and nature conservation which is mediated and transmitted through folk stories.

“However, traditional modes of storytelling have rapidly declined, mostly due to the pressures of modernity, the often uncritical reverent acceptance of conventional science and its knowledge systems, as well as the dwindling number of human repositories and tellers of indigenous stories. Our research will recommend a systematic approach to the preservation of these stories before they completely disappear,” says Dr Nyambi.

He continues: “Beyond the usual promotion of traditional storytelling as a mechanism of cultural preservation, we will recommend the archiving of the stories in written form, inclusion in school material as part of moral education, and modernisation for easy circulation through, for instance, animation.”

Receiving funding

The researchers successfully applied for funding which they mainly used for field work. The project involves travelling to rural communities where much of the oral stories and storytelling exist. They also use the money to purchase, where applicable, published stories for analysis.

“We wouldn't be able to do this vital study without funding so we feel that the grant is a crucial enabler of this process of seeking and indeed making knowledge of this rarely-talked-about topic with implications for how indigenous knowledge can be harnessed in ongoing attempts at arresting the climate crisis.”

News Archive

In January 1, 2003, the Qwa-Qwa campus of the University of the North (Unin) was incorporated into the University of the Free State (UFS).
2003-02-07


FREDERICK FOURIE

IN January 1, 2003, the Qwa-Qwa campus of the University of the North (Unin) was incorporated into the University of the Free State (UFS).

While this is merely the beginning of a long and complex process, it does represent a major milestone in overcoming the apartheid legacy in education, realising the anti-apartheid goal of a single non-racial university serving the Free State.

The incorporation is also part of the minister's broader restructuring of the higher education landscape in South Africa - a process which aims to reshape the ideologically driven legacy of the past.

In contrast to the past educational and social engineering that took place, the current process of incorporating the Qwa-Qwa campus of Unin into the UFS is informed by three fundamentally progressive policy objectives, clearly outlined in the education white paper 3: (A framework for the transformation of higher education):

To meet the demands of social justice to address the social and structural inequalities that characterise higher education.

To address the challenges of globalisation, in particular the role of knowledge and information processing in driving social and economic development.

To ensure that limited resources are effectively and efficiently utilised, given the competing and equally pressing priorities in other social sectors.

Besides informing the way the UFS is managing the current incorporation, these policy objectives have also informed the transformation of the UFS as an institution over the past five years.

In 2001, former president Nelson Mandela lauded the success of the UFS in managing this transformation, by describing the campus as a model of multiculturalism and multilingualism. This was at his acceptance of an honorary doctorate from the UFS.

Indeed our vision for the Qwa-Qwa campus as a branch of the UFS is exactly the same as it is for the main UFS campus - a model of transformation, academic excellence, community engagement and financial sustainability, building on the histories and strengths of both the Qwa-Qwa campus and the UFS (Bloemfontein campus).

Realising this vision will be a giant leap forward in establishing a unified higher education landscape in the Free State.

In more concrete terms, the UFS is working towards this vision by focusing on the following areas of intervention: access and equity; academic renewal; investment in facilities; and sound financial management.

These interventions are being made not to preserve any vestiges of privilege or superiority, but precisely to increase access for students from poor backgrounds and to promote equity and representivity among all staff.

The current growth phase of the UFS has seen student enrolment almost double over the past five years, in particular black students, who now constitute approximately 55 percent of the student population of nearly 18 000 (including off-campus and online students).

But it has not just been a numbers game. Our approach has been to ensure access with success.

Our admissions policy, coupled with the academic support and "career preparation" programmes we offer, have resulted in significant successes for students who otherwise would not have been allowed to study at a university.

This will be continued at Qwa-Qwa as well.

Our academic offerings too have undergone dramatic change. We have become the first university in the country to offer a degree programme based on the recognition of prior learning (RPL).

This is not just a matter of academic renewal but of access as well, especially for working adults in our country who were previously denied a university education.

As for the sound financial management of the UFS (including the Qwa-Qwa campus), this is being done not for the sake of saving a few rands and cents, but for the greater value to our society that comes from having sustainable institutions.

It is sustainable universities that can make long-term investments to fund employment equity, provide information technology for students, upgrade laboratories, construct new buildings, develop research capacity, and provide a safe environment for students and staff, as is happening now at the UFS.

As a result of such management, a practical benefit for prospective students at the Qwa-Qwa campus of the UFS will be lower academic fees in some cases compared with the Unin fees.

As is the case with all these processes, there are concerns from staff and students at Qwa-Qwa and the broader community of the region that the Qwa-Qwa campus serves.

To get the campus viable and to ensure its continuation in the short term, tough choices had to be made by the minister of education regarding which programmes to offer and fund.

But we have been encouraged by the community's understanding that these concerns can be addresed over time as the campus becomes financially viable.

Meetings between the top mangement of the UFS and community representatives, staff and students at Qwa-Qwa have laid the basis for building a climate of trust in such a complex process.

We should not be captives of the past divisions but build this new unified higher education landscape that can meet our country's developmental needs.

It should be a higher education landscape that is based on broadening access, promoting equity and social justice, developing academic excellence, and the effective and efficient management of scarce resources. This should be our common common objective.

Professor Frederick Fourie the rector and vice-chancellor of the University of the Free State (UFS)

 

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