Wits Centre for Diversity Studies

Yesterday, WiCDS had the pleasure of receiving Prof Neo Lekgotla laga Ramoupi, author of a powerful book on music, resistance and culture on Robben Island. Prof Ramoupi was joined by Dr Kgafela oa Magogodi and Dr Paola Prandini in a session chaired by Zoya Naidoo.

His work not only documents the role of song as a form of cultural resistance but also fills critical gaps in South Africa’s liberation historiography, particularly the erasure of Pan-Africanist and Black Consciousness contributions.

Thank you to everyone who joined us in this emotional and inspiring conversation!

TOMORROW!

Our next WiCDS Wednesday session will honour the cultural resistance on Robben Island through Prof Neo Lekgotla Laga Ramoupi’s book on South African songs of struggle and liberation. Chaired by the WiCDS MA student, Zoya Naidoo, the seminar will also have the participation of Dr Kgafela oa Magogodi and Dr Paola Prandini.

Join us on August 12, from 13:30 to 15:30. Light refreshments will be served.

In person attendance: WiCDS office (13th floor, Es’Kia Mphahlele Building, cnr Jorrisen and Jan Smuts, above Wits Art Museum).

Online attendance: see QR code on the poster.

Yesterday, Dr Mayne Souza Benedetto shared a talk during our Scholarship Development session, based on the proposition that neutrality does not exist. Rather than treating positionality as a brief exercise in self-description, the presentation explored it as an ongoing practice of critical interrogation. Together, the WICDS postdoctoral fellow and our students examined how researchers are already present within their research long before they write a positionality statement, through the questions they ask, the categories they use, the evidence they privilege, the voices they recognise and the conclusions they draw.

Thank you to everyone who joined us in this thought-provoking conversation!

Last week, our PhD candidate, Yukako Ban, shared a proposal for an article based on her Master’s research during our Research Seminar. Her paper aims to discuss, among other reflections, the notion of Japanese people being positioned as “honorary whites” in South African history.

It was a great opportunity to get to know more about Yukako’s work and learn about what are the experiences of Japanese people who live in South Africa and how they are seen in the country.

Our next WiCDS Wednesday session will honour the cultural resistance on Robben Island through Prof Neo Lekgotla Laga Ramoupi’s book on South African songs of struggle and liberation. Chaired by the WiCDS MA student, Zoya Naidoo, the seminar will also have the participation of Dr Kgafela oa Magogodi and Dr Paola Prandini.

Join us on August 12, from 13:30 to 15:30. Light refreshments will be served.

In person attendance: WiCDS office (13th floor, Es’Kia Mphahlele Building, cnr Jorrisen and Jan Smuts, above Wits Art Museum).

Online attendance: see QR code on the poster.

Last Thursday, WiCDS hosted an awesome free session of Agents at the Wits Theatre. It was an evening full of laughter and critical engagement on whiteness and urban anxiety, mainly related to the Johannesburg real estate system.

We hope to see you at our future events, since knowledge-making does not belong only to classrooms, and WiCDS is committed to social change and educational engagement beyond the university walls.

📸 Rue Rushwaya

Yesterday Dr Jamil F. Khan, who has recently finalised their doctorate at WiCDS, was a keynote speaker at the interdisciplinary conference “Towards Critical Apartheid Studies (TAS)”, organised by Postgraduate students at Wits.

It was a provocative and insightful presentation on the relevance of understanding the framework of repetition as something crucial to social transformation and justice. Dr Khan ended the keynote by saying: “freedom is the dutiful repetition of justice until it becomes ordinary.”

Yesterday WiCDS hosted a roundtable panel on Extremist Mythologies as Segregationist Systems in the Contemporary World, during the interdisciplinary conference “Towards Critical Apartheid Studies (TAS)”, organised by Postgraduate students at Wits.

Chaired by Prof Nicky Falkof, the conversation was based on a forthcoming edited collection entitled Extremist Mythologies, and some of the contributing authors shared critical analyses of their lived experiences of extremism in Brazil, Russia, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

Thank you to everyone who joined the session and especially to Dr Ekaterina Zibrova, Dr Kudzaiishe Vanyoro and Dr Paola Prandini, and to Dr Hannelie Marx Knoetze (UNISA) and Nkululeko Sibiya (University of the Witwatersrand).

On Monday, WiCDS hosted Crispin Thurlow, Charmaine Kong, Laura Wohlgemuth and Alessandro Pellanda (University of Bern) for a talk on how colonial power relations affect ways of thinking about waste.

Drawing on Walter Mignolo's work on the semiosis of coloniality, the speakers explored how waste is discursively and materially pushed "away", from museum exhibits and migrant labour to donation economies and waste governance infrastructures.

Thank you to our guests for such a thought-provoking session!

Last week, some WiCDS students graduated and we are so proud of them. Well done, folks!

Check below who must be celebrated:
- Angelo C. Louw
- Boitumelo Dingalo
- Ciaran Heywood
- Jamil F. Khan
- Nkamo Gabantese
- Nomahlozi Ramohloki
- Sandra Mbewe