INVITATION TO A PUBLIC LECTURE

African Diaspora Public Lecture Series

DATE:  TUESDAY, 7TH MARCH 2017

TIME:      11h30 until 13h00

VENUE:   S27, Faculty of Education, University of the Western Cape

Professor Elïsio Macamo

Professor, African Studies – University of Basel, Switzerland

TITLE:  ‘The Challenge of Scholarship in Africa’

Synopsis: While student protests have been shaped to a great degree by issues of a political nature pertaining to social justice and the legacy of Apartheid in the country they have also found coherence in narratives that critically engage with the nature of scholarship in Africa. The purpose of the lecture is to reflect on the meaning of institutionally grounded ways of producing knowledge by coming to terms, first, with the challenge of rendering the conceptual vocabulary of the social sciences useful to the description of African reality and, second, dealing with the conflicting demands of responding to policy requirements while remaining true to the object of science which consists in creating, nurturing and sustaining communities of dialogue and introspection”.

Prof Elísio Macamo, a sociologist by training, is Professor of African Studies at the University of Basel in Switzerland where he is also the Director of the Centre for African Studies and Head of the Social Sciences Department. He was born in Mozambique, and studied in England and Germany.  He is co-editor of the AEGIS book series on African Studies and a member of the scientific board of several journals. He is currently a member of the Board of the International African Institute in London. His current work focuses on the contribution of African Studies to general scholarship. He has a keen interest in methodological issues.

The public lecture will be useful for academics, researchers and postgraduate students.

RSVP by Friday 3 March:

To: Lydia Steer, IPSS-Higher Education Studies, UWC

Email: lsteer@uwc.ac.za