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20 May 2022 | Story Rulanzen Martin

The Africa Day Memorial Lecture has always been a platform for scholars to critically reflect on and engage with subject matter pertaining to Africa and her people. This year’s lecture will be no different when Prof Bagele Chilisa, post-colonial scholar from the University of Botswana, will deliver this year’s lecture on the topic: Research and knowledge production: Africa and the call for a fifth research paradigm.  

“In this lecture, Kwame Nkrumah’s call for Africa-centred knowledge, Claude Ake’s promotion of endogenous knowledge, and Ngungi wa Thiongo’s decolonisation of the mind recall Africa’s innovations in the COVID-19 crisis, celebrate Africa’s unity of mind, and claim Africa’s space in the global knowledge production,” writes Prof Chilisa.

The lecture is hosted annually by the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies at the University of the Free State (UFS). Previous speakers include, among others, Dr Rahul Rao, Prof Alcinda Honwana, and Prof Walter D Mignolo, who delivered the 2021 memorial lecture. 

Premiere at 19:00 on YouTube to join the lecture click on video below. 

Time: 19:00


For more information, please contact Portia Khate at KhatePB@ufs.ac.za

Click to view documentVisit the dedicated #AfricaMonth webpage here 



About the speaker: 
Prof Chilisa is a renowned post-colonial scholar, researcher, author, educator, and an important African thought leader. Some of the courses she has been facilitating for more than 30 years include research design, policy design, and measurement and evaluation courses, among others. As a full Professor at the University of Botswana, she has supervised more than 50 master’s dissertations and PhD theses with diverse academic discourse and has served as external examiner for PhD theses in the Southern African Development Community (SADC) region. 

Her interest in community-based research has driven her to write extensively on indigenous knowledge, as well as to publish a book titled Indigenous Research Methodologies – a book that has sparked international discourse on the importance of indigenous methodologies, especially in Africa.  With more than 80 publications, Prof Chilisa was recognised as the Researcher of the Year and awarded UB Research Team Leadership at the University Research Awards Ceremony in 2019.

Other UFS events celebrating #AfricaMonth 

2022 Africa Week: ‘African Higher Education – Celebrating African Education’

The University of the Free State Office for International Affairs, in collaboration with the Unit for Institutional Change and Social Justice, will be hosting its fifth annual Africa Day commemoration.

In accordance with COVID-19 protocols/rules, the different activities will have limited capacity for attendance, but live streaming will be made available to the rest of us. This may change at any given time, according to circumstances as determined by the relevant departments of the institution. 

You are all cordially invited to tune in; please RSVP on the links below for attendance (attendance is limited). In the meantime, save the date and the links below. 


Opening Ceremony: South Campus
Date: 23 May 2022
Venue: Open space outside the cafeteria
Time: 13:00-15:00
RSVP link: https://events.ufs.ac.za/event/1534/  


Celebratory Dialogue: Bloemfontein Campus
Date:
25 May 2022 
Venue: Centenary Complex 
Time: 16:00-19:00

Closing Ceremony: Qwaqwa Campus
Date: 27 May 2022
Venue: B11 EMS 
Time: 12:30-15:00

For more information, please contact Bhekumusa Zikhali at ZikhaliBN@ufs.ac.za 

News Archive

Statement from Prof Jonathan Jansen regarding a misquote about Madiba
2013-04-10

08 April 2013

Comments made by learners who attended the Leadership Summit (pdf)

Prof Jonathan Jansen: Presentation about Great Leaders (pdf)

The news article that first appeared in Volksblad of Monday 8 April 2013 claiming that I wanted Madiba to die, refers.

This is a complete misrepresentation of what I said. My argument was that Madiba had done so much for South Africa, that he had served South Africa well, and that sometimes you just wish that people would leave him alone so that he can pass his final days quietly.

Like all South Africans, I want Madiba to live as long as possible, but without the constant glare and speculation of the media and others. He needs to be left alone to rest and die in peace. That was the content and context of what I said.

To misrepresent a lengthy statement on a talk which was entirely devoted to extolling Madiba’s leadership — alongside that of Luthuli, Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr (this was the main photograph on the screen) — is mischievous. The seven characteristics of leadership of Mandela, and the other three, were what the one hour and ten minute talk was about — something completely ignored in the misrepresentation.

It is true that I depicted the crises from Marikana to the Catholic Church as crises of leadership and not primarily military or religious blunders.

It is also true that I argued that the official representation of the hospital visits as ‘routine checkups’ was inaccurate for aged people, since at the age of 94 no hospital visit is ‘routine.’ That is what I said.

- Prof Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector, University of the Free State

Media Release
08 April 2013
Issued by: Lacea Loader
Director: Strategic Communication
Tel: +27(0)51 401 2584
Cell: +27(0)83 645 2454
E-mail: news@ufs.ac.za

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