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Emerging Adults in Search of Self

26 September 2022 | Story Michelle Nöthling | Photo Stephen Collett

Prof Luzelle Naude — Prof Luzelle Naudé, Professor in the Department of Psychology, delivered her inaugural lecture on the topic: In Search of Self: Emerging Adults as Actors, Agents and Authors.

How do people endeavour to answer the question: Who am I? This is the central question that Prof Luzelle Naudé – professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of the Free State (UFS), has built her academic career on. Under the title of her inaugural lecture, In Search of Self: Emerging Adults as Actors, Agents and Authors, delivered on14 September 2022, Prof Naudé traced the arc of her academic career over the past three decades.

Development as a Scholar

Prof Naudé started by giving an overview of her research as an early scholar, investigating students’ learning experiences and predictors of student success, followed by an exploration of the adolescence stage within the context of South Africa. Prof Naudé’s research interest then led her to investigating the third decade of life: emerging adulthood.

Interestingly, from the turn of the century, the group of 18- to 25-year-olds take longer to transition into adulthood. This group finds themselves in an in-between space, “not being an adolescent anymore, but definitely not being an adult either,” Prof Naudé explained. This has sparked an interesting scholarly debate: is emerging adulthood indeed a new developmental stage, or is it something only applicable to a minority of Western, affluent middle-class, university students? The answer is the former. There are actually many emerging adulthoods – also among our South African youth.

Current Research Focus

Currently, Prof Naudé is interested in the narratives of emerging adults at the intersection of self and society. The self, she pointed out, unfolds through different layers, namely the actor, the agent, and the author. “Our South African emerging adults are acting in an increasingly complex and transitioning social world. As agents, they advance through this complexity by telling redemptive stories of generativity, upward mobility, and of liberation. And as authors, they reconstruct their past, present, and future into a coherent life story and a narrative identity,” Prof Naudé said.

Naude Inaugural From the left; Dr Edwin du Plessis, Head of Department of Psychology; Prof Heidi Hudson, Dean of the Faculty of The Humanities; Prof Luzelle Naudé , and Prof Corli Witthuhn, Vice-Rector: Research and Internationalisation. Photo: Stephen Collett.

The Way Forward

“I’ve became convinced,” Prof Naudé emphasised, “about South Africa and the Global South’s ability to contribute to global knowledge production.” Prof Naudé and her team are therefore adding a South African voice to several multicultural, multinational projects, including the African Long-Life Study – in collaboration with the University of Zurich – and the Selves within Selves project. Prof Naudé’s vision, however, is to ultimately establish an Identity Research Hub at the UFS to consolidate research activities in this field and to formalise interdisciplinary partnerships.

Watch recording video below:

News Archive

International Year of Crystallography attracts science experts from across the globe

2014-10-13

Video: Discover what Chrystallopgraphy can do for you
Video: Celebrating Crystallography: An Animated Adventure

Summit programme

The third world summit in the International Year of Crystallography (in Africa) will be hosted by the UFS Department of Chemistry here on the Bloemfontein Campus. Prof André Roodt, Head of the Department of Chemistry, was elected as the President of the European Crystallographic Association in 2012. Earlier this year he unveiled the Max von Laue 'Plaque' in Posnan, Poland.

The Pan-African Meeting of the International Year of Crystallography consists of a congress and summit. The details are as follows:

Congress
12–15 October 2014
CR Swart Senate Hall, UFS Bloemfontein Campus

Summit
15–17 October 2014
CR Swart Senate Hall, UFS Bloemfontein Campus
Summit opening: Wednesday 15 October 2014 at 14:00 in the CR Swart Senate Hall

This event will be opened and attended by:
•   the UFS Rector and Vice-Rector – Profs Jonathan Jansen and Corli Witthuhn;
•   the acting Director-General of the Department of Science and Technology – Dr Thomas Auf der Heyde;
•   the acting CEO of the National Research Foundation – Dr Gansen Pillay;
•   the UNESCO Vice-Director for Science Extension – Dr Jean-Paul Ngome-Abiaga (Paris, France);
•   the representative of the Executive Committee for the International Union of Crystallography (IUCr) – Prof Santiago Garcia-Granda (Oviedo: Spain);
•   the marketing director of the IUCr – Prof Michele Zema (Pavia, Italy);
•   the President of the European Crystallographic Association (ECA) – Prof André Roodt, who will officially open the summit on Wednesday 15 October 2014 from 14:00–15:30.

Presenters from across Africa and Europe will deliver papers at this event which will be attended by more than 100 delegates from twenty-plus countries, including Spain, France, Italy, Croatia, Germany, Russia and India.

Numerous crystallographic research areas will be covered. This includes:
•   powder diffraction,
•   small molecule crystallography,
•   biological crystallography,
•   industrial crystallography,
•   surface crystallography,
as well as techniques such as
•   electron microscopy and
•   synchrotron work.

“At this event we hope to establish an African Crystallographic Association,” said Prof Roodt.

The United Nations declared 2014 as the International Year of Crystallography. It was recently officially opened at the UNESCO headquarters in Paris, France, by the Secretary General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon.

The International Year of Crystallography celebrates the centennial of the work of Max von Laue and the father and son, William Henry and William Laurence Bragg. More generally, it celebrates what crystallography can do for humanity – which proves to be a significant amount.

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