11 November 2009, First DRINK and THINK Seminar

On Wednesday November 11th, the first DRINK and THINK Southern Africa Seminar was held in very good spirits. While enjoying a taste of wonderful South African wine, a diverse group of VU-scholars listened to an inspiring talk by Professor Peter Nijkamp (FEWEB) on the socio-economic impact of migration in South Africa. Drawing on his extensive empirical knowledge, Nijkamp argued that -contrary to public opinion- foreign and domestic migration to urban centres does not have a negative impact on the local economy.    
 
 
The seminar was the first in a two-monthly series. The next seminar is planned for January.






Above: Peter Nijkamp addressing the audience
Left: SAVUSA director Harry Wels toasting on the occasion of the first DRINK and THINK seminar

28 October, 2009: Get-together South African students

On 28 October, SAVUSA and Tamar Pagrach, Internationalisation Officer at FEWEB, jointly organised a get-together for the approximately 17 South African students that are currently studying at VU University. The aim was first of all to organise something specifically for South African students to get them to know SAVUSA and the services that the international offices have to offer. And of course, to give them an opportunity to get to know each other as most of them are here on different programmes.
The afternoon was a success, also covered by this week’s Ad Valvas (5 November 2009), and hopefully the students will report this and other positive experiences back to their South African universities so that we will be able to welcome many more South African students. 
 
Above: Saskia Stehouwer, SAVUSA project leader, welcoming the South African students
Left: students at the 'borrel'

28 October, 2009: guest lecture Dr. Christoff Pauw

On 28 October, Dr. Christoff Pauw, Co-ordinator South-South Networks at Stellenbosch University (SUN), held a lecture on vision and practice of SUN on South-South relations. Regarding the strengthening of African research and the position of African research in the world, Stellenbosch University is emphasising African collaboration and positioning itself as a Developmental University.

21 October 2009, special book launch for The Last Frontier War by Prof. Kobus du Pisani

On 21 October 2009, The Last Frontier War: Braklaagte and the struggle for Land before, during and after Apartheid was presented by its author Prof. Kobus du Pisani to the community of Braklaagte (North-West Province, South Africa) during a special ceremony. In the Anglican church of Braklaagte, Prof. Kobus du Pisani presented the book to Kgosi Ntswanyana Sebogodi, Chief of the Braklaagte community. Prof. Kobus du Pisani: “It is important that local youth knows about its own local history and do not only know Nelson Mandela as the Father of the Nation, but also the name of the father of their own current chief”.
Right: Prof. Kobus du Pisani presenting the book to Chief Kgosi Ntswanyana Sebogodi (photo: Ida Sabelis) 

The book tells the story of how a black community in rural South Africa, the Bahurutshe Ba Ga Moiloa, managed to hold on to Braklaagte, the farm in the northwestern corner of the country near the Botswana border, which they purchased in 1908. They managed to resist attempts by the successive white-controlled governments to forcefully remove them from their land and the farm became, in terms of the Land Acts, a ‘black spot’ in ‘white’ South Africa.

During the ceremony, there was a response from the community in the persons of Chief Kgosi Ntswanyana Sebogodi and councillor Mokhansela. Present from the side of SAVUSA as one of the publishers was Harry Wels. He also addressed the audience: “This research of Prof. Kobus du Pisani is the result of a very long tradition of cooperation between VU University Amsterdam and the North West University – Potchefstroom Campus. It goes back as far as 1880, when VU University was established in Amsterdam and Potchefstroom Campus was still only a Theological Seminary in Burgersdorp. I wish to thank the community of Braklaagte and Chief Sebogodi for the trust and access granted to Prof. Kobus du Pisani.”

Kobus du Pisani is Professor of History in the School of Social and Government Studies at the Potchefstroom campus of the North-West University. The Last Frontier War is a recent publication in the SAVUSA-Rozenberg-UNISA Press series. 

Harry Wels addressing the audience with the help of atranslator (photo: Ida Sabelis)

September and October: Inaugural lectures VU University Amsterdam Desmond Tutu Professors

The first four Desmond Tutu Professors were installed and presented during the launch of the Desmond Tutu Programme on 4 December last year, with Archbishop Desmond Tutu himself addressing the audience (see the short report on the fourth of December 2008). In September and October 2009, every professor delivered his inaugural speech in which they outlined their research plans and other academic activities for the next five years. Prof. Van Furth was the last Professor to be appointed.
 
The Desmond Tutu Programme’s themes are Youth, Sports and Reconciliation and each Chair Holder dealt in his address with these themes from the perspectives of their respective disciplines and expertise in which processes of reconciliation in South Africa are contextualised.
More information on the Programme and the different Professors can be found on the Desmond Tutu Programme pages.  


Prof. Stephen Ellis
On 23 September, Prof. Stephen Ellis was the first of the Desmond Tutu chair holders to deliver his inaugural lecture in the VU aula. In his lecture, Ellis urged the Europeans to decolonize their minds. Both Europeans and Africans should develop a new vision on the history of a relationship that is all too often mainly studied through the prism of colonial rule.
The full text of the lecture is available as a pdf-file.

Prof. Geert Savelsbergh
Prof. Geert Savelsbergh from the Faculty of Human Movement Science was the second Desmond Tutu Professor to hold his inaugural lecture, on Wednesday 30 September. In his lecture, called "Playing between the lines", Savelsbergh argued that an analysis of observatory skills can contribute to the identification and development of talent in sports. A soccer player who plays between the lines is always available to receive the ball and can become the linking factor within a team. Savelsbergh and his team are interested in the skills underlying the game insight of these players.
The full text of the lecture is available in pdf.

Prof. Eddy Van der Borght 
On Wednesday the 7th of October, Prof. Eddy Van der Borght, the Desmond Tutu Professor for the Faculty of Theology, held his inaugural lecture, titled “Sunday Morning – The Most Segregated Hour: On racial reconciliation as unfinished business for theology in South Africa and beyond”. In his lecture, Prof. Van der Borght argues that race is still a major factor in both South African society and in religious practice in South Africa. From the perspective of Christian theology it is surprising that a belief system in which the unity of the church as the expression of the faith in one God cannot overcome the differences between groups of people.
The full text is available in pdf.

Prof. Chris Elbers
On Wednesday, 14 October, Prof. Chris Elbers, Desmond Tutu Professor for the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, held his inaugural lecture. In “Op zoek naar de juiste maat” (Looking for the right measure) Prof. Elbers emphasises the need for sound empirical research in development economics and related policy recommendations. Too often, policy is made based on largely theoretical assumptions, whereas empirical research should not be omitted.
His lecture can be downloaded as a pdf.

September: New SAVUSA publications

Recently, a new book in the SAVUSA-UNISA-Rozenberg Series has been published: Health communication in Southern Africa: Engaging with Social and Cultural Diversity, by Luuk Lagerwerf, Henk Boer and Herman Wasserman (eds.). The studies presented in the book, represent different scientific perspectives on issues of health communication, such as social networks, mass media, document design and the role of language. All the research was based in Southern Africa, and show the complexity of social and cultural factors related to health communication.

In addition, in the SAVUSA POEM series, ‘The God-Given Land’: Religious Perspectives on Land Reform in South Africa by Eddy van der Borght (ed.) has been published. The contributions in the book focus on the understanding of land in Africa and the importance it has for people. People feel strongly connected to the area they live in, the soil they live on, and in many cultures this strong connection is linked with strong religious convictions. The volume offers sociological analyses, theological evaluations and an ethical assessment of the South African land issue.




For more information on the books, visit the publications pages.

June 2009: New SAVUSA publications

Two new SAVUSA publications have seen the light, both published together with UNISA Press. The Ndebele Nation: Hegemony, Memory, Historiography by Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni and Thinking Diversity, Building Cohesion: a Transnational Dialogue on Education by Mokubung Nkomo and Saloshna Vandeyar (eds.).

The Ndebele Nation is the first mayor study since the 1970s on the history of the Southern African kingdom of the Ndebele of Zimbabwe. This book delves deep into issues of state formation, nation-building, style of governance, hegemony, memory and the idea of a Ndebele ‘nation’ rather than a ‘tribe’. A richly nuanced historical portrait of the pre-colonial Ndebele political and social life is provided.
The book is at once a major historical reconstruction of an African pre-colonial society, engaging with key hegemonic and ideological issues while at the same time contextualising all this in a broad historiography and critical social theory in the period from the nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. This book makes a bold challenge to the mythology of Ndebele ‘exceptionalism’ that was used by colonialists to justify their colonial mission.

Thinking Diversity, Building Cohesion is a cooperation between the University of Pretoria and the South African Human Rights Commission. The book is composed of papers submitted to a colloquium on issues of diversity education.
The book draws attention to complexities in the ways difference and diversity express themselves in schools and class rooms and it takes us into multi-perspectival and comparative analyses of what sustains deep divisions among students at all levels of the education system. The authors of this collection dig deep and what they find is a series of tensions: resistance and resilience, continuities and change, postcolonial conditioning and liberation impulses, assimilation and dissent. Race, the contributors argue, seldom operates on its own.

23 June, 2009: Launch "From our Side" in South Africa

On 23 June, From our Side: Emerging Perspectives on Development and Ethics, a SAVUSA publication by Steve de Gruchy, Nico Koopman and Sytse Strijbos, was launched at Stellenbosch University. The launch took place at the end of a joint conference of IIDE and Stellenbosch University. IIDE is the Institute for International Development and Ethics, which is a cooperation between the Faculty of Philosophy of VU University Amsterdam and the University of the Free State (Bloemfontein, South Africa).
The launch in the Netherlands took place on 4 April 2008, at a seminar organised by SAVUSA and hosted by ICCO, in which IIDE Europe was officially presented in the Netherlands.
(In this picture: Nico Koopman, co-author and director of the Beyers Naudé Centre for Public Theology of Stellenbosch University, at the launch in Stellenbosch)

From our side is a collaborative effort of younger scholars in southern Africa and the Netherlands who are interested in the relationship between development and ethics, from a Christian point of view. The 17 chapters that make up the book have been produced through a unique set of partnerships, in which the authors have intentionally worked with practitioners who are working in the development arena. The essays were also shared in a number of settings with the authors, so that they have also benefited from this creative partnership process, and these partnerships have involved people in both the South and the North.


Dr. ir. Sytse Strijbos has lectured philosophy at VU University Amsterdam within the programme of Christian Studies on Science and Society, and at the North-West University. He is currently chairman of IIDE. Nico Koopman is Professor of Systematic Theology and Ethics at Stellenbosch University. Steve de Gruchy is Professor of Theology and Development at the University of KwaZulu Natal.

15 June, 2009: Presentation Prof. Arnold van Zyl, Stellenbosch University

On 15 June, Prof. Arnold van Zyl, Vice-Rector Research from Stellenbosch University South Africa, visited VU University Amsterdam. He presented a paper, entitled: Research at Stellenbosch University - A Tool for Development.
The paper is an outline of the competencies of Stellenbosch University and how they are being applied to address the development challenges of South Africa and the region.

11 June, 2009: UNISA visits VU University Amsterdam

On Thursday 11 June, Prof. Barney Pityana, the Vice-Chancellor of UNISA, the University of South Africa, visited VU University Amsterdam, together with Prof. Narend Baijnath, Vice Principal Strategy, Planning and Partnerships, Ms. Sizakele Magubane, Director International Relations and Prof. Joseph Diescho, Head of the Directorate of International Relations and Partnerships.
Present on the side of VU University Amsterdam was the Rector Prof. Lex Bouter, Prof. Chris Elbers, Desmond Tutu Professor of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Harry Wels, Director of SAVUSA, Saskia Stehouwer, SAVUSA project leader, Kees Kouwenaar, Head of the Centre for International Cooperation, Harriët van Daal, Head of the International Office, and Reyka Lycklama, International Office.  

 

UNISA has an institutional agreement with VU University and this collaboration was reinforced again with the signing by Prof. Lex Bouter and Prof. Barney Pityana of a prolongation of the 2005 Memorandum of Understanding between the two universities, which had expired.
Included in the agreement is the editorial cooperation between UNISA  and SAVUSA, within which already 11 academic titles have been published. VU University Amsterdam’s Desmond Tutu Programme, which is coordinated by SAVUSA, is also part of the agreement. In addition, more opportunities for cooperation in the field of PhD trainings were explored during the afternoon.

See for more information on UNISA, the page on Partners in South Africa.

 

4 - 14 May, 2009: SAVUSA visit to South Africa

Three of the Desmond Tutu Professors and SAVUSA made a trip to South Africa in the first half of May in order to get acquainted with their colleagues and counterparts at the various universities, as well as to meet up with PhD students who might be interested to enroll in the DTP-NRF PhD Programme. Below you will find several impressions and reports of the trip.

 


Desmond Tutu Professor Chris Elbers addressing the 300 PhD students gathered at the National Research Foundation's PhD Fair, Johannesburg, 6 May 2009 (photo: NRF).
For more photos please see the internet photo albums on 
Foto's NRF Conference
Foto's 2 SAVUSA visit to South Africa

May 2009

"We are in business" - Report of DTP May trip to South Africa by Harry Wels

Right after setting foot on South African soil the Desmond Tutu Professors and the SAVUSA team went on a tour through Soweto with Phaphama (www.phaphama.org) and visited the actual place where 14-year-old Hector Pieterson was shot during the Soweto uprisings in 1976. Hector Pieterson became a powerful symbol of these protests as because of a very famous photograph, depicting a young man carrying Hector’s dead body, with a young girl - Hector’s sister - walking beside him with her hands in front of her mouth in sheer agony and disbelieve. By visiting the Hector Pieterson monument and museum, we paid homage to the event which gave rise to the first Desmond Tutu Chair.

16 June is South Africa’s Youth Day, which commemorates the Soweto uprisings. On 16 June 2007, Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu visited VU University Amsterdam and accepted a chair on Youth, Sports and Reconciliation to bear his name.
On 4 December 2008, VU University Amsterdam installed four Desmond Tutu professors and launched the Desmond Tutu Programme, and again we were honoured with the presence of the ‘Arch’, as he is affectionately known. 1100 people attended the moving and inspiring ceremony.

In May 2009 three of the four Desmond Tutu professors - unfortunately Professor Eddy Van der Borght couldn’t join the tripdue to his sabbatical in the US) - Chris Elbers (Economics), Stephen Ellis (Social Sciences) and Geert Savelsbergh (Human Movement Sciences) presented themselves to South Africa and met up with their counterparts at the various South African institutions. The trip had a symbolical next to a practical goal: to make clear that all the efforts and ceremonies of the past two years in the Netherlands had only been an upbeat to prepare them for the actual academic cooperation and work in South Africa itself. The main aim of their trip was to convey a message to colleagues and interested parties in South Africa and the Netherlands: we are now in business in South Africa.

Next, the Tutu professors played a central role at the PhD Fair organized by the National Research Foundation (NRF) of South Africa and participated in a seminar organized by SANPAD  in Durban, where they were able to meet and talk with project leaders from the various academic research programmes linked to their specific fields of interest.
In between and around all these central meetings the Tutu professors all had separate meetings, ranging geographically from Mafikeng to Stellenbosch to Johannesburg.

Yet another symbolical meeting was the one with Bert Koenders, our Minister for Development Cooperation, in Stellenbosch. Koenders had also attended the two events in 2007 and 2008 as a guest of honour, with Tutu remarking that for a Minister, he was ‘soooo young!’. At Stellenbosch University, hosted by Rector Professor Russel Botman, VU Rector Magnificus Lex Bouter signed a Declaration of Intent with Minister Koenders on a comprehensive four-year programme on skills development in higher education, to be coordinated by SAVUSA, as part of the Desmond Tutu Programme.

 

Unfortunately Archbishop Tutu couldn’t make it to Stellenbosch, as he was in the United States at the time, but he personally asked Ms. Nomfundo Walaza, Chief Executive Officer of the Desmond Tutu Peace Centre, to represent him. This was an excellent choice, as Ms. Walaza addressed us in he very same spirit of optimism and hope as the Arch had done on both occasions at VU University. On 4 December 2008, Archbishop Tutu spoke of the power of dreaming. He asked young people worldwide to keep on dreaming of a better world. The Desmond Tutu professors of VU University Amsterdam, Chris, Stephen, Geert and Eddy, all hope that as Desmond Tutu professors cooperating with colleagues in South Africa, they may contribute to making some of these dreams come true.    

Media coverage

The University of Stellenbosch has published a report of the ceremony on 12 May on their website. During this ceremony Dutch Minister for Development Cooperation Bert Koenders and VU University Amsterdam Rector Prof. Lex Bouter signed a letter of intent concerning a skills development programme for South African MA-students and PhD-students, jointly developed by the Dutch Embassay in South Africa and by SAVUSA, as part of the Desmond Tutu Programme.

The workshop organized by SANPAD in Durban was covered in the South African media, the article can be read here.