ACC Rhodes
- Title
- ACC Rhodes
- Date
- November 25, 2024
- Language
- English
- Transcript
- [Music] greetings uh my name is innocento the director of African studies Center of rad University uh we are founded by the German Research Foundation through the University of birro since 2019 where we have undertaken through that relationship numerous collaborative work covering the social sciences the humanities Arts um other work from other faculties such as education law and the Natural Sciences our key aim is to really focus on reconfiguring African studies from several angles and this has been made possible because of the generous funding of the German Research Foundation through the University of barro itself we have built over the years a network a very strong International network of collaborators within the cluster itself first and foremost and also numerous other partners across the continent so we are building upon a very strong and robust intellectual Foundation uh that is led by Ros University itself which is a research intensive University based in Manda we do boast uh massive research infrastructure such as the the international library of African music that showcases very rare collection of music and works from across the continent since the 1920s we also have a huge Historical Library that contains collections from South Africa and parts of southern Africa since the uh late 1800s and so forth we also are a seat of M in maanda that has the largest collection of a government funded International library of uh literary Works which uh Scholars are free to consult when they want to study about the evolution of the literature across the continent the the university also has a huge well preserved aarum that makes it possible uh to research on issues relating to biological sciences botany the African environments and so on so we do welcome you to partner with us in our efforts to extend our reach in terms of studying Africa in his various facets we have really benefited from our relationship with our Scholars uh network of Scholars in MO University in Kenya in Joseph kizo in Bina Faso in the university of Legos as well as the University of bid and a lot of other other partners across across the the globe we are looking for uh the renewal of our uh partnership for the next seven years and hopefully we have a longer lasting relationship under Africa M thank you very much all right I'm Professor Nelson Odum I'm the director of The Institute for water research here at Rose University and also the academic coordinator of the Rose University African studies Center The Rose University African St Center is one of the centers within the African multiple clusters of Excellence which is funded by the jman government and this African multiple class of Excellence is made up of the center at the University of Bon which is the lead Center and the Ros University Mo Lagos University of Lagos and Joseph Kazo University in Bina Faso the whole idea behind the African multiple cluster of Excellence is that of configuring study you will see that it comes from the global North but the whole intellectual exercise of the center of this initiative is really to reorient the notion of African study so that the voices of the global sou can be heard in terms of what it means to actually do African study yet at Rose University the entire project has been so impactful it has been Artful in multiple domain one it has really strengthened our early career rious ecosystem so for example through this project we have supported more than 10 phds and more than also 10 postdoctoral fellows across different disciplines from The naal Sciences to Humanities and social science and all of these people have contributed to the notion of African studies from their various discipline and I think one of the beauty of this particular project is the r configuring of African study from an intellectual perspective but also from a structural perspective and um what we're looking forward to is that in the various node and and centers these structures that have been created will become enduring even after the lifespan of this project and I'm talking about the 2.0 thank you hi I'm Professor Ruth zimbar in the Fine Art Department I'm also the national Research Foundation sa in ja politics and the Arts of Africa I've been working with the African studies center for the last few years and this has really enabled me to expand on the collaborations that I have with artists and Scholars across the African continent I've been the pi for a research project the last few years on Art activism and social justice and we questioned with a group of artists what the complexities are in terms of registering registering descent and resistance through ART mostly the visual and the Performing Arts I think a highlight for me in my research the last few years has been a documentary film that I've been making the film is about a memorial site that was built a few years ago in AKA in Zambia and the memorial site is supposed to commemorate the zambians the tanzanians and the Chinese who died when they were building the Tado Railway line in the 1960s and the 1970s so what I do with my film is I build in certain performative resistances or performance interventions into the film and I do this because even though the memorial site is supposed to commemorate the Africans particularly the zambians and tanzanians who died um because the project is very much driven by the Chinese State and so it has a particular rhetoric there's a lot of oversight in terms of the local Zambian understandings of death memorialization um Graves and the relocation of the graves because the film and the memorial involves the relocation of Graves and there's a lot of misund understanding about local understandings of local perceptions of um ancestors how to honor ancestors and ancestral Spirits so I build in performance interventions in the film to um to challenge these ideas about the memorial my next project I'm very much looking forward to the next film which I'm starting to work on and this is going to be quite a different form as it's quite experimental the film is set on Sten Island which which is in the South Atlantic Ocean it's very remote between Angola and um Brazil but closer to the African Coast I actually have personal ancestral links to the island and there's a long history of Africans and Chinese people being present on the island it used to be a prison Island and there was also Chinese indentured labor on the island so this time I'm going to experiment with different types of methodologies using more personal embodied and even spiritual methodologies as a way of creating this experimental film thank you hello my name is Lee Watkins I work at the international library of African music here at rhs University uh this is the oldest music archive on the African continent and it's celebrating its 70th book birthday this year um my interests it's it's a broad spectrum archival studies hip-hop studies traditional music Heritage studies it covers quite a few areas and usually I'm quite open to ideas which students might have um and colleagues sometimes approach me with requests for writing on certain topics and then I'm quite easy and open about pursuing those interests um my relationship with rasque here at Ro university has been quite productive it's been enriching in relation in terms of meeting so many new people with very very committed and concerned about uh the future of research on the African continent in general Humanities so my interest is from the musical uh aspect so discipline of music but I'm also quite interested in related disciplines which includes anthropology Linguistics um socio Economic Development especially in rural Africa Technologies new technologies social media and so on so it's been quite exciting to having to work with colleagues in so many different uh disciplin iines that's been and quite a quite a good experience the other experience is um the opportunities which this um collaboration allowed so so allowing me to travel to other parts of the African continent to speak to young African Scholars because about the their research and about writing it up because I'm also an editor for a journal so it's very good to recruit and meet with young scholars for them to write articles and then possibly have it published in this journal um yes so those kinds of opportunities and then from an archival perspective looking at the collections that we have on the African continent and looking at the state in which they are uh which they are in and trying to find remedies or Solutions with regard to digitalization which is kind of the very everyday thing about the archives but it's also looking towards the future and especially here in the continent where many countries are still refusing to digitize collections so that's been almost the activest part of my role is to uh uh motivate and persuade people to digitize their collections as for the future in this collaboration I've got a long list of hopes and and desires and all that but I think what the main hope that I do have is that we could entrench this collaboration so it's not just about exchanging goods and knowledge but it's also increasingly to to Foster or bring about a general Humanity to increase intensify that because we are facing huge challenges with climate change being one of them um and then how do we do this through collaborations with a other African countries and also with countries of the global North so my hope is that um we could could continue and intensify our efforts at um transforming not only at the universities and institutions but also um I think our human relationships with each other and with the environment thank you my name is uh Patrice muu or simply Patrice I'm a professor of French studies and Deputy dean of humanities I'm a member of uh RH University African studies Center oras and uh I'm one of the members who were there since the establishment of this Center I'm very happy to testify that this Center has brought light to Rod University because the agenda for the center is the research in African studies which existed before but in isolation in each department for now the center is serving as a hub for all the research in African studies and we can find all the researchers from the entire University putting their effort together in order to promote the Africa agenda and also the good side of the center is that it is working in connection with all the scholars around the world those Scholars who are very much interested in promoting African culture and Science and everything they can also come to University and Ro University is going there in order to team up and bring very interesting research for our continent so this is so far so good and we hope that the next cycle uh of this Center we can continue doing the same research and improving all the time and going where we have never been before and uh this is only good it will get better and we hope that the support that we are enjoying nationally and internationally and from our own institution will continue to be there and this is going to be very good and I thank you very much for giving us this opportunity to be working for Africa from Africa and around the world thank you hi I'm Sally Matthews I'm associate professor in the department of political and international studies at rhs University and I'm also involved in the rhs African studies Center well my interests are very much in the politics of knowledge production on Africa and so that's why I fit into um the into the bigger project of the road stud Center I've enjoyed interacting with the colleagues from the other um parts of the broader cluster and I I hope to to collaborate further we had a very good meeting last year in Mombasa trying to bring together our different ideas and I'm looking forward to collaborating further with colleagues at buus and also at the other cluster centers thank you my name is Lawrence Juma I'm a professor of law here at ruds University in the law faculty I have been Affiliated uh to the African study center for about uh three years and um my experience has been really really good um my research is in the area of uh forc migration and um um displacement and uh because of my uh relationship with the center um I've been supported in a number of ways um uh at one time I was supported uh to be able to participate in an International Conference um uh in Tanzania uh where we were discussing the role of um uh international law in managing African migration um and apart from that um I've U the center has been able to bring um colleagues from across uh the globe uh to debate on human rights issues which is also my passion um and uh to see some of our students being supported um uh to be able to uh finish your studies um so I do hope that the center does grow uh in strength uh I do hope that um many more Scholars could join the center to give it much more strength and uh that we are able to collaborate even um across the globe with other colleagues in from other countries so that we strengthen uh the academic voice in some of the matters that we uh we do um I also do hope that um um the center gives our univers univers the uh needed visibility uh in terms of U research um and academic work across the disciplines that um we work through and really it is because of the center that um I've began to uh work with colleagues in other disciplines and explore matters of of common interest so I'm I'm I'm quite excited um and I do hope the best for uh the Center thank you my name is bodina mccon I'm the hod and eth musicologist at the department of music and musicology at rhs University and also a very active member in the Africa multiple cluster it's a really wonderful privilege to be involved with the cluster for many reasons one being that I have gotten to meet many other colleagues at the University who are also part of it and secondly as a principal investigator I was funded for the project called African approaches to Sonic pedagogy this has been really amazing because I have been able to meet with and learn from colleagues all over the African continent which I think is exactly what the cluster is all about in fact I've been able to invite them to come to rhs University and share their knowledge not only with my colleagues and I but also with our students and I think this is where the value of it is we're not trying to meet people from around the world we're trying to meet people from Africa and trying to sh share knowledge with each other and for me that has been the most valuable part I look forward to the next uh funding cycle and I hope that there'll be many other opportunities just like that hi so I'm Dr Dominic Santos from the rhs University anthropology department I joined the Africa studies Center about a year and a half ago um and it's been incredibly rewarding in terms of the support that the center has given to our research on shipwrecks on the southern Indian ocean coastline of uh South Africa and the province We Now call the Eastern Cape and our work has really been looking at uh Portuguese shipwrecks in particular and making visible the fact that these were slave shipwrecks that They Carried caros of people um and also that they had many people on board whose stories were erased or marginalized made invisible in historical accounts of these voyages and this age that's been called the age of Discovery been called the foundation of the modern world system but really conceals so much in terms of the narrative that's told about it and that's what our work is uncovering through the prism of shipwrecks and what happened in the aftermath of shipwrecks on these Coast lines so in doing this work we've been scrutinizing uh shipwreck narratives from survivors of of shipwrecks to uncover the stories of enslaved people on board and also marginal crew who became part of indigenous Societies in this part of the world and this helps us in a lot of ways to get a bigger picture of what our history actually is and who we actually are and what South Africa is built on and what the world is built on so our work has um allowed us to collaborate with um Heritage organizations local museums uh to interpret Heritage collections as well so a lot of the material culture tangible Heritage objects that have been recovered from shipwreck sites we're now um able to work with the local museums like the East London Museum to reinterpret these collections in light of these new stories that we're finding um in order to get a bigger picture of of what our heritage is about um it would be beautiful to be able to continue to be supported in this work to continue growing um the ways in which we can really transform Heritage studies in this country but also globally I'm Suzanne feta in the botony department I'm a plant ecologist with a long-standing interest in human environment interactions including in rangelands and also in the relationships of humans with nature and how that relates to Heritage um I'm relatively new to the African multiple clusters um I've been involved in developing a new thematic area called ecologies um as part of the proposal for a second phase and I'm very excited um about the possibilities um for studying human environment relations in Africa and especially the possibilities for collaboration and exchange with colleagues in the other African member institutions hi um my name is um Michelle Cox I'm an associate professor within the department of anthropology at Road University and my research interest are around environmental anthropology and I have been doing um research predominantly within the Eastern Cape that um attempts to to understand um people's relationships with the natural world initially this was very much within a line with a a livelihoods p perspective and um and how this had potential impacts for environmental um concerns so a lot of my work engaged with attempting to understand how um natural resources are used and the impact this may have on the environment so it contributed towards um uh debates and dis discuss discussions around um conservation however in more recent years this has shifted towards uh attempting to understand how the meanings and significance that are attached to the natural world not only in terms of what people are making use of the Environ environment for on a utilitarian basis but also the meanings and attachment in relation to Notions of of spirituality as well as well-being and belonging now a lot of my work has been um I've collaborated with um organizations predominantly based within um with more based within the global North such as um vinan um the University of vinan as well as Sweden um to mention a few so my possibility or uh this opportunity to be part of the African multiple clusters is really exciting as I can see the possibilities or the opening up of working more closely with people who are based within Africa and therefore contributing and building this body of knowledge in a more holistic and engaging way thank you hello everyone my name is Dru and um I'm a new member of the RADS African studies Center I'm a senior lecturer in the history department and I teach courses related to world history and African history it's a pleasure to be a new addition to the center and I'm looking forward to engaging and making contributions to scholarship in Africa through this initiative and it is my hope that I'm going to benefit and also contribute towards the building of a postgraduate cohort and also derive benefits of my own research my research interests are mainly in um African economic history with a particular emphasis on South Africa and Zimbabwe and um I focus mainly on mining history agricultural history Financial history as well as uh peace building and conflict resolution in Africa so it is my hope and believe that uh my expertise in this kind of research is going to add and um build up and make a useful addition to the center initiatives hello there my name is Dr fji Mata chera m I am a post-doctoral fellow under the African studies Center at rhs University being a part of the center has been an enriching experience for me in my journey as an early career researcher it has given me countless opportunities to engage with other African individual intellectuals who are at the same um uh part in their career Journey uh it has given me opportunities to get exposure to people outside of my discipline and given a lot of opportunities for growth I look forward to continued engagement with the center as well as the African multiple cluster and I'm hopeful for what uh is in store for us for the future thank you very much hello everyone I am Dr F flourish a post doctoral fellow at the African studies Center here in Ro uh I a medical historian with special focus on matal infant aale child and children care mid with free and M fre practices in colonial precolonial and post colonal Africa uh I started my uh post do here this year and so far it has been overwhelmingly amazing and this is because of the opportunity the m cluster has offered me in terms of mentorship uh in terms of um provision of um research uh resources which has helped me in uh writing articles all of which is uh presently being published at uh one of uh the top medical journals in uh in the world and uh I look forward to a uh wonderful uh experience which I have been enjoying as an early career uh researcher it is a real opportunity and it is something it is one I I would always cherish because it is uh an opportunity that is R to come by and uh with this I really appreciate the multiple poster for its funding and uh its generous funding and uh so far the experiences I've have had it's amazing is an amazing one and one I would forever cherish as I grow in my career thank you
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