The Mafeje and the UCT saga: unfinished business?

Community social psychologies for decoloniality: an African perspective on epistemic justice in higher education

“…Towards the end of 2013, we held our very first group workshop. In preparation for the workshop, we read from Professor Ntsebeza's article on the 'Mafeje affair' (Ntsebeza, 2014). The experience of Mafeje, a Black South African professor and intellectual who was rejected by the institution is telling.…”

From Quibbles to Substance: A Response to Responses

“…The central point concerns the way that power and powerlessness informed by conceptions and articulation of race, place, class, gender and age further complexify the production, dissemination and consumption of those knowledge forms that we accept as legitimate explanatory domains (Nyamnjoh 2004). In "Blinded by Sight", I simply reiterate a concern black South African scholars, some anthropologists, have expressed as well (Mafeje 1998;Ntsebeza 2008Ntsebeza , 2012Lebakeng 2008;Magubane 2010;Nyoka 2012;Nhlapo and Garuba 2012). Even as recently as 2009, two "black" South African anthropologists published an article in Anthropology Southern Africa highlighting inequalities and politicised relations within and between anthropology departments and contested the idea of a single South African anthropology (Petrus and Bogopa 2009) -a paper which elicited responses by Heike Becker (2009), Joy Owen (2009) and Kees van der Waal (2009).…”

“…Similarly, the body of feminist scholarship (including even the most successful women in a world narrowly configured around manhood) has many lessons and parallels for a post-Apartheid South African society overly determined by race despite the latter's constitutional invisibility. Thus, rather than wishing Apartheid and its inequalities away with an impressive shopping list of publications, it is important to critically reflect on what Apartheid produced in the form of anthropology (Mafeje 1998;Sharp 2011;Bank and Bank 2013) and what its effects on the present are (Ntsebeza 2008(Ntsebeza , 2012Lebakeng 2008;Petrus and Bogopa 2009;Becker 2007Becker , 2009Owen 2009;van der Waal 2009;Adesina 2011;Nyoka 2012;Sithole 2009Sithole , 2012Mohamed 2012). Is there a place for factoring in the production, reproduction and resilience of white subjectivities in relation to black subjectivities in South Africa?…”

African Research and Scholarship: 20 Years of Lost Opportunities to Transform Higher Education in South Africa

“…4 one of those choices that UCT made about Mafeje was the betrayal of the university's principles on academic freedom and university autonomy, particularly that "there was no law that stopped UCT from employing a black academic outside African languages." 5 According to Professor Monica Wilson, head of the department of Social Anthropology and Mafeje's former supervisor and mentor, Mafeje, the African candidate, "was deemed to be the best candidate for the job." 6 So when UCT chose not to appoint him, and deferred to De Klerk's statement that they must "fill the vacancy suitably with a white person," the institution was lowering its standards to fit the appointment of a white lecturer, even when "after full discussion," the Committee of Selectors, had resolved "that the unanimous recommendation of the Board of Electors that Mr. A. Mafeje be appointed, be upheld."…”

“…In his reply, Mafeje said that he found the offer "most demeaning." 11 Even today it is overwhelming to think about UCT's answer to Professor Mafeje in the environment of President Mandela's national reconciliation, nation-building, and so-called "Rainbow Nation." To belabour this infuriating point, after eighteen years of being a professor internationally, Price's predecessors saw it as appropriate to offer Mafeje a position at the rank of senior lecturer.…”