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Internationalisation of engaged scholarship: Prof Peacock’s impact

19 March 2024 | Story Valentino Ndaba | Photo SUPPLIED

Prof Robert Peacock, of the University of the Free State’s (UFS) Criminology Department, champions global engagement in scholarship, offering hope to victims worldwide while linking academia, policy, and practice.

Crime and victimisation have far-reaching consequences that profoundly impact on societal, economic, and ecological development. At the forefront of addressing these global challenges in Criminology, Victimology, Transitional and Criminal Justice, stands Prof Robert Peacock, an esteemed figure in the field from the University of the Free State's Department of Criminology.

His expertise adds significant depth to understanding and tackling the complex interplay between interpersonal conflict and broader societal, economic and ecological injustices. As serving and now Immediate Past President of the World Society of Victimology, Prof Peacock’s impact reached the highest levels, holding consultative status at both the United Nations Economic and Social Council and the Council of Europe. Together with the Justice Section of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), interventions on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice reform were also made on occasion of the 35th Anniversary of the United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power.

Advancing global discourse

Reflecting on his tenure, Prof Peacock emphasises: “The plight of victims of crime and abuse of power underscores the imperative to scrutinise global and local power dynamics, linking local experiences to global patterns of victimisation and transformation.” This sentiment resonated profoundly during the World Victimology Symposium held in Donostia/San Sebastian in Spain, shedding light on the Anthropocene epoch’s complexities.

His commitment to international collaboration is unwavering, evident in his new role on the Scientific and Advisory committee of the upcoming 2025 World Criminology conference to be hosted by O.P. Jindal Global University in India.

Global reach

Beyond academia, Prof Peacock’s influence extends worldwide, with invitations as a guest lecturer, course director, and keynote speaker at prestigious institutions and symposia. His guest editor roles in special editions of journals like Mediarres and Ethnicity in Criminal Justice highlight his dedication to advancing critical regional and international discourse.

To proceed with an emancipatory agenda for victims of crime and abuse of power in Africa or that of a Southern Victimology, Prof Peacock advocates for a paradigm shift in victimology, transcending narrow Western perspectives, and to remain mindful of the global economy and geopolitics that create new variations of privilege and status and asymmetries that cut across nations and regions. Recent translations of his work into Spanish aim to enhance accessibility across Latin America.

Strategic collaborations

In recognition of his expertise, Prof Peacock received a Global Minds grant, facilitating collaboration with KU Leuven (Katolieke Universiteit Leuven) in Belgium, a leading institution in law and criminology. This partnership, focusing on human rights, transitional justice, restorative justice and victimology, paves the way for impactful research on conflict, peace, and development.

Prof Peacock’s longstanding collaboration with colleagues in Belgium and the Netherlands underscores his commitment to international scholarship. Together, they’ve contributed significantly to victimological approaches to international crimes, even securing an audience with Pope Francis.

Advancing practical application

In advancing praxis and the internationalisation of engaged scholarship, Prof Peacock presented twice during the month of January 2024 on the topic of Trauma informed practice for frontline workers at the Permanent Mission of Belgium to the European Union. This was done in close cooperation with the Leuven Institute of Criminology, KU Leuven, and the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brussels, together with an interdisciplinary project consortium, that included partners from Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Greece, Portugal, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Prof Peacock shared as speaker sessions with a Trauma Expert of the Victims and Witnesses Section of the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

As Prof Peacock continues to champion engaged scholarship on an international scale, his contributions seek to ameliorate the plight of victims of crime and abuse of power worldwide, bridging gaps between academia, policy, and practice.

News Archive

‘Is the South African university curriculum ‘colonial'?’ asks Prof Jansen

2017-11-24

Description: Jansen readmore Tags: Prof Jonathan Jansen, colonial, university curriculum, western knowledge

From left; Prof Corli Witthuhn, Vice-Rector: Research; former Rector and Vice-
Chancellor of the UFS, Prof Jonathan Jansen; Prof Michael Levitt, and
Prof Francis Petersen at the celebration lecture at the UFS.
Photo: Johan Roux

One of the critical issues that emerged from the South African student protests during 2015 and 2016 was a demand for the decolonisation of university curriculums.

A senior professor at the Stellenbosch University, Prof Jonathan Jansen, said the number of people, including academics, who joined the cause without adequately interrogating the language of this protest, was astonishing. “The role of social scientists is to investigate new ideas … when something is presented to the world as truth.” Prof Jansen was speaking during a celebration lecture at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein on 15 November 2017.

Large amount of knowledge not African
He said the accusation is correct to a limited degree. “The objection, in essence, is against the centring of Western, and especially European knowledge, in institutional curricula.” There is no doubt that most of what constitutes curriculum knowledge in South African universities, and in universities around the world, derive from the West. “The major theories and theorists, the methodologists and methods are disproportionally situated outside of the developing world,” Prof Jansen said.

The dilemma is, how will South Africa and the continent change the locus of knowledge production, considering the deteriorating state of public universities? “In the absence of vibrant, original, and creative knowledge production systems in Africa and South Africa, where will this African-centred or African-led curriculum theory come from,” Jansen asked. He says the re-centring of a curriculum needs scholars with significant post-doctoral experiences that are rooted in the study of education and endowed with the critical independence of thought. “South Africa's universities are not places where scholars can think. South African universities’ current primary occupation is security and police dogs,” Prof Jansen said.

Collaboration between African and Western scholars
“Despite the challenges, not everything was stuck in the past,” Prof Jansen said. South African scholars now lead major research programmes in the country intellectually. The common thread between these projects is that the content is African in the subjects of study, and the work reflects collaboration with academics in the rest of the world. These research projects attract postgraduate students from the West, and the research increasingly affects curriculum transformations across university departments. There is also an ongoing shift in the locus of authority for knowledge production within leading universities in South Africa. Prof Jansen feels a significant problem that is being ignored in the curriculum debate, is the concern about the knowledge of the future. How does South Africa prepare its young for the opportunities provided by the groundswell of technological innovation? “In other parts of the world, school children are learning coding, artificial intelligence, and automation on a large scale. They are introduced to neuroscience and applied mathematics,” he said.

Prof Jansen said, in contrast, in South Africa the debate focuses on the merits of mathematics literacy, and what to do with dead people’s statues.

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