Unisa online - Archie Mafeje Research Institute to be launched on 4 May

Dr Siphamandla Zondi, Chairperson of the Institute for Global Dialogue, could not have summed it up better during one of the meetings discussing the logistics for the upcoming launch of the Archie Mafeje Research Institute (AMRI). Dr. Zondi said “The Archie Mafeje Research Institute (AMRI) is a great institute, established and hosted by a great university, in honour of a great man!”

Indeed, when some of the best brains in the country descend on Unisa’s ZK Mathews Great Hall on Friday 4 May 2012, it is here that the veracity of this statement will emerge. The occasion will be the official launch of the Archie Mafeje Research Institute (AMRI), a policy research institute located within the College of Graduate Studies.

Unisa established this institute to honour an African intellectual who dedicated his life to promoting endogenous knowledge that would inform solutions to African social problems and to building an epistemic community of African scholars dedicated to creative thinking about critical African policy challenges.

Ugandan intellectual, Prof Dani Wadada Nabudere, who speaks highly of Mafeje in his book Archie Mafeje: Scholar, Activist and Thinker, said this of him: “Archie Mafeje was an independent Pan-Africanist and cosmopolitan individual who sought to understand the world at a global level in order to locate Africa within that tapestry. In many ways, Archie Mafeje was one of the African intellectual pathfinders. He contributed immensely to the African people’s search for self-understanding, self-determination and political emancipation as they struggled against alienation and misrepresentation”.

It is perhaps fitting that it should be at Unisa that Archie Mafeje finds an intellectual home because, like him, the university is on a quest to reclaim the rightful place for African intellectuals and African knowledge systems.

Through the African Intellectuals, Knowledge Systems and Africa’s Futures programme, an initiative of the Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Mandla Makhanya, Unisa aims to:

• promote research, innovation and development outputs by African intellectuals in Africa and the Diaspora;
• promote inter-disciplinary approaches to science, research and innovation for Africa’s development;
• identify research areas and innovative ideas with possible industrial applications needing attention and research in the context of South Africa, Africa and the world;
• expose youth and young adults and emerging scholars, researchers and intellectuals to a plethora of successful African leaders, in academia, as well as public and private sectors; who are engaged in advancing the African agenda for development; and
•  promote research, innovation and social justice as key components of successful universities or Africa’s futures.

The day’s proceedings will take place under the theme: “Archie Mafeje and the rethinking of knowledge in and on Africa: Past, Present and Future”.

Prof Makhanya will deliver the opening address, while the Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Prof Hlengiwe Mkhize has also been invited to speak at the event.

Several other speakers and intellectuals of high standing will also speak in honour of Mafeje and his work during the day’s proceedings. These include Prof Peter Anyang’ Nyong’o, Minister of Medical Services, Republic of Kenya, Professor Dzodzi Tsikata, Deputy President of  the Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) and intellectuals such as Prof Jimi Adesina, Prof Puleng Lenka Bula, Dr Siphamandla Zondi, Prof Sam Moyo and Prof Lungisile Ntsebeza. 

Click here for the invitation to the launch of the Archie Mafeje Research Institute taking place on Friday 4 May 2012.

*Written by Martin Ramotshela