Prof Barbara Rudo Gaidzanwa (Dean: Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Zimbabwe), Prof Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni (Head: AMRI), Dr Thandi Sidzumo-Mazibuko (Executive Director: Diversity Management, Equity & Transformation) & Prof Lesiba Joseph Teffo (Head: IARS)
Archie Mafeje’s ideals continue to permeate Unisa, as was evident at the Archie Mafeje Research Institute (AMRI) Symposium Series which was held on 3 October 2012 to celebrate and share the legacies of this academic stalwart. The event was held under the theme “Critical enquiry into African knowledge production and epistemological systems, with the aim of generating endogenous Afrocentric perspectives and paradigms”.
In welcoming the guests, Prof Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, Head: AMRI, defined Mafeje as an African intellectual and combative cadre who never wavered in his analysis of African issues from an Afrocentric standpoint. “The world is facing a crisis that the combative intellectual Archie Mafeje and a few other critical academics foresaw coming,” said Ndlovu-Gatsheni. He added that after this realisation, Mafeje – together with other combative intellectuals – paved the way for a de-colonial turn, indicating the direction of post-Euro-American epistemological hegemony.
In her keynote address, Prof Barbara Rudo Gaidzanwa, Dean: Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Zimbabwe, defined Archie Mafeje as a luminary in the African social science firmament. In her paper, Gaidzanwa raised critical questions regarding the theme. She asked: How do we mobilise to produce endogenous knowledges and Afrocentric perspectives that can help us understand and generate better strategies for reconstituting better African societies beyond colonialism? And how do we mobilise Africans to understand the historical relationships between Africans, before, during and after colonialism? “It is important to deal with these issues if we are to maintain and strengthen the values of social and economic strength based on economic production and solidarity, and construct workable forms of cooperation based on our past, present and the imperatives of our futures which need to guarantee our common prosperity and wellbeing,” she said. “We have to discard all that is not African when we aim to transform our continent.”
Gaidzanwa said that she has been reading Mafeje for a long time. She went on to touch on issues of inclusivism and exclusivism, and said that the apartheid South Africa was an oppressor to the native residents. “They were considered to be uncivilized and lacking European origins,” she said. These sentiments were based on the assumptions that closeness to European origin conferred superior status, thus creating divisions between various groups of peoples who inhabited South Africa, the geographic entity.” She said that while a lot has been achieved to abolish apartheid, “there is still an unfinished struggle against colonialism that has also infected South Africans of the ancestries of the native peoples who are not descended from Europeans… This refers not only to South Africa but to many African countries,” she concluded.
Other speakers at the event included Prof Catherine Odora-Hoppers, Department of Science and Technology/National Research Foundation SA Research Chair in Development Education and Co-Director, Pascal International Observatory; and Prof Mammo Muchie, SARChI Chair Holder at the Institute for Economic Research on Innovation (IERI), Technical University of Tshwane.
*Written by Trevor Khanyile
