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06 April 2023 | Story Cornelius Hagenmeier
AFRICA MONTH 2023

Theme: Promoting and appreciating knowledge in and from Africa

On 25 May 2023, Africa will celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU), now the African Union (AU). In continuance of the University of the Free State's (UFS) long tradition of commemorating Africa Day and the ideas underpinning it, the UFS will once again celebrate Africa in 2023 by organising diverse commemorations. The commemorations will highlight African indigenous knowledge and its relevance for higher education in South Africa and beyond. The interpretation and transfer of African indigenous knowledge will be celebrated through music and dance.

Africa Day memorial lecture

The highlight of the celebrations will be the Africa Day memorial lecture, hosted by the university's Centre for Gender and Africa Studies on Wednesday 24 May 2023. The speaker is Prof Motlatsi Thabane, formerly of the National University of Lesotho. The title of his presentation is Friendship in the Search for Justice in Mohokare Valley in the Nineteenth Century. The departure point of Prof Thabane’s lecture is the early 19th century. 

He demonstrates that a community of white settlers fleeing British rule in the Cape Colony was added to African communities living in the Mohokare Valley at the beginning of the 1830s. As a result, complex relations developed between African and white settler communities in the Mohokare Valley. Central to those relations was occupation and ownership of land. Driven by different motives and influences, some African communities threw in their lot with incoming white settler communities, while others resisted the alienation of land they regarded as theirs. 

Moshoeshoe I and his followers were among the latter groups. Consequently, relations that developed between Basotho and white settlers were characterised by deep mutual mistrust, tension, and conflict. White settlers were not a monolithic group, however, and among them were individuals who regarded the alienation of Africans’ land as unjust. Josias Philip Hoffman was one such individual. Concerned about the welfare of the Basotho and opposed to the unjust manner in which fellow settlers seized their land, he formed a friendship with Moshoeshoe I, and lent a hand to Moshoeshoe I’s resistance against the alienation of the Basotho’s land. The purpose of the lecture is twofold; first, to celebrate the friendship between these two men, and second, to ask questions about whether we can learn something from this friendship today.

Africa Month book launch 

The memorial lecture will be preceded by a book launch on 22 May. The UFS Library and the Centre for Gender and Africa Studies will facilitate the launch of the book titled, Decolonizing The Mind: A guide to decolonial theory and practice by Sandew Hira, Secretary of the Decolonial International Network (DIN). The book attempts to offer a comprehensive, coherent, and integral theoretical framework that draws on different contributions in the resurgent and insurgent decolonial movement. Hira will use the book launch to make a clarion call for a new world civilisation anchored in the decolonisation of the mind. 

The Africa Month Dialogue, slotted for 26 May and facilitated by the Office for International Affairs, will carry the same theme as the memorial lecture, namely, ‘Promoting and appreciating knowledge in and from Africa’. Together with the Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Francis Petersen, and international partners, we will discuss the meaning and value of African indigenous knowledge, the importance of being creators and co-creators of knowledge in and from Africa, and the importance of African knowledge on the international stage. Of importance is the idea of African ways of being, knowing, and relating. In the engagement, internationalisation of African knowledge will be considered without necessarily compromising Africa’s ability to integrate and engage on a global level. The UFS’ approach to promoting African-produced knowledge and epistemological diversity and disseminating knowledge in and from Africa will be deliberated. 

Hybrid format 

The 2023 UFS Africa Month commemorations will once again take a hybrid format. Besides the Africa Day memorial lecture, the book launch, the Africa Day Dialogue, and various face-to-face functions on all three campuses, there will also be online content on a dedicated website. We are looking for contributions that engage with knowledge. Among others, UFS community members and its international partners are invited to make contributions centred on promoting and appreciating knowledge in and from Africa by way of contributions centred on, but not limited to the themes below: 

Exploring how knowledge in and from Africa is promoted and appreciated

• The role of orality in creating new understanding and insight 
• The potential of oral traditions and oral history for knowledge creation, transfer, and dissemination 
• Women in African knowledge processes
• Personal biography’s position in knowledge generation
• African land tenure systems
• African languages and knowledge creation
• Indigenous healing systems and pandemics
• Memory and knowledge creation
• African conflict resolution mechanisms and practices
• Ubuntuism 
• Indigenous knowledge in Africa
• The national, regional, and global impact of African scholarship
• UFS knowledge collaborations/partnerships on the African continent
• Narratives of research and student excellence associated with African unity 
• Dissemination of knowledge in and from Africa
• Celebrating epistemological diversity in and from Africa.

Other forms of contributions/participation can include, but are not limited to
• recorded performing arts performances (e.g., solo music or poetry);
• virtual visual art presentations;
• written poetry;
• songs;
• short thought/opinion pieces, which can also be published in mainstream media; 
• topical academic writings;
• face-to-face events; and 
• live-streamed events (with links to the Africa Month webpage).

Please share a brief written proposal explaining your planned contribution by 12 May 2023. The proposal should not exceed 300 words and should be emailed to Bhekumusa Zikhali at zikhalibn@ufs.ac.za / Africadaycommemoration@ufsacza.onmicrosoft.com.

News Archive

Department of Architecture recognises excellence
2014-11-20

 

From the left are: Gary Westwood, Marius du Plessis and Henry Pretorius
Photo: Ifa Tshishonge
Front page design by Marius du Plessis

Marius du Plessis received the first prize in the Regional Corobrik Student of the Year Award for his design of a National Geothermal Research and Educational Centre in Johannesburg. The award ceremony was hosted by the Department of Architecture at the University of the Free State.

Anja Lareman was awarded the second prize for her Psychiatric Unit for the Deaf in Worcester and Mariska Peel received third prize for her design of a laboratory for the after oil epoch in Durban.

The Corobrik award for Best use of clay masonry brickwork was awarded to Valentino Moutzouris for his design of a Performing Arts Centre in Wynberg, Cape Town.

The event was well attended by architecture students who hoped to take home an award. Projects exhibited, received distinctions in one or all of the three main components, including design, the architectural theoretical treatise and building sciences.

“This is the greatest award that one could win in the Free State. It came with so much blood, sweat and tears, as I had to live, eat and work day and night at the same place in order to finish the project,” said Marius, master’s student in Architecture. He said that he hopes the project can be developed and implemented in mine shafts to solve the energy crisis in South Africa.

Henry Pretorius, Academic Departmental Head of Architecture, said: “It is vital for architecture to have a public interface. This event is to showcase the work of students and to make sure that it is accessible to the public. It encourages students to understand the value of their own work and its cognisance to society.”

Gary Westwood, Sales Manager of Corobrik Free State, Northern Cape and Lesotho region, said: “So far it has been an incredible journey. This annual event of 24 years is our way of giving back to the community who supports and sustains our business. It is wonderful to see how the architecture industry has adapted to a more sustainable way of design, by being part of the green movement.”

Marius will compete with other Corobrik winners from various universities on national level in April 2015.

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