The current University of Cape Town Employment Equity Plan projects that by 2020 the African professor category will increase from 2% to 7% while only 16% of professionally qualified middle management will be African.[i] White professors will constitute 58% and white associate professors will make up 47%. Middle management will be 30% white – a higher […]
Black Academic Caucus
Black Academic Caucus (BAC) is a platform that advocates for inclusive and diverse academic institutions that also prioritise black academics and their knowledge. Committed to transformation and decolonisation of UCT primarily, and influencing the higher education landscape in South Africa, BAC will advocate for curriculum and research scholarship that is linked to social justice and the experiences of black people. This blog hopes to establish a community of black scholars, engage academics, students and citizens and debate on issues affecting transformation and decolonisation of higher education in South Africa.
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, Lifestyle, Media, News/Politics
The Place of Sara Baartman at UCT
The label “Hottentot Venus” continues to haunt our memory of Sara Baartman. This moniker, used in Jean Reaux’s posters to advertise the exhibit of Sara, may have been repudiated by renowned scholars such as Pumla Dineo Gqola, Zine Magubane, Yvette Abrahams, Patricia Hill Collins, Sander Gilman among others, but it has persisted as the lens […]
Posted inEquality, General
The Tide Has Come. Is UCT Ready?
In the midst of protests and suspension of lectures recently, the University of Cape Town’s leadership went on a search for a Deputy Vice Chancellor of Teaching and Learning. This was no ordinary search. Over the years, we have heard various iterations on how rare it is to find black South African womxn academics who […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
UCT Black academic caucus statement
21 October 2016 The UCT Black Academic Caucus believes that the current situation at our universities necessitates a national multi-stakeholder solution. The increasing securitisation and violence on our campuses has become untenable and cannot be resolved through negotiations between the executives and student groupings within individual institutions. The student movement that began at the University […]
Posted inGeneral
“Hair Rules”
by Victoria J. Collis-Buthelezi On Tuesday last I attended a meeting at which a well-meaning colleague seemingly complimented me on my hair. It was in a two-day old flat-twistout and as such looked somewhat more like a stretched ‘fro. “I like your hair,” he began. Not bad, I thought, then came, “ … especially in […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
Decolonising knowledge doesn’t contradict ideal of academic excellence
By Shose Kessi Real and lasting social change does not take place without theory. Theory crafts, guides, sustains and legitimises social systems. In order to dismantle the social systems we live in, which are characterised by racism and other forms of oppression, we need to advance our theories. These theories should and must emerge from […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
The art of hypocrisy: Appeal to re-constitute Shackville
By Shobane A wave of condemnations and outrage hit the media after University of Cape Town artworks were burnt on campus. Even those academics, who from the rooftops declared their support for the fees must fall movement were very quick to distance themselves from what they saw as a particularly “senseless” act. This violence, it […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
On violence: Whose bodies matter?
By Barbara Boswell Violence is never acceptable. In a democracy, where legal instruments exist as a remedy to injustice, the use of brute force to seek and maintain power or settle scores is abhorrent and unacceptable. Yet we live in a country saturated with violence. Violence is in sharp focus as it spills over into […]
Posted inEquality, News/Politics
It is not about Rhodes, outsourcing, fees…it is about defining a new society for all South Africans
By Vissého Adjiwanou It started as a “mood swing” from some black academics at UCT, questioning the lack of transformation within their institution and challenging the inadequate responses from the administration. In their statement and later engagement with UCT, they called for the dismantling of any institutional discrimination, the recognition of the contribution of black […]
Posted inEquality, Gender violence, News/Politics
Of black pain, animal rights and the politics of the belly
By Shose Kessi It is interesting how bodily and affective experiences are often weaved out of what is deemed “rational” theorising of current events and political talk. How can my mind operate separately from the rest of my being? Where does the separation occur? At the eyes? The nose? The mouth? The belly? The waist? […]
Posted inEquality, General, News/Politics
The more things change, the more they stay the same: The curious case of black women and queer life at UCT
By Zethu Matebeni The last few months have stimulated long overdue conversations and action in higher education institutions in South Africa. Rhodes Must Fall, over and over again. The concrete structure may be gone from the steps of the UCT upper campus, but its shadow remains — blocking the same path that leads to possible […]