South Africa - Sweden Research and Innovation Week

Day one: Experience kwaZulu-Natal (South African) culture:
o There will be a “pop-up flee market” Ubuhle beZululand Festival - for selling of local produced products: Food show, Live traditional music, Arts & craft Exhibition (optional)

Time : 12:00 pm till late

Day Two: Colloqium – presentations and disussions around local-based economy . Communities are indirectly excluded in discussion platforms such as colloquiums and conferences as they are usually represented as ‘case studies’ where their experiences are secondary reported as research findings and in government roundtables they are regarded as ‘beneficiaries’. There are limited platforms that offer communities to speak their mind, report their own challenges and or be given a chance to develop plans/interventions that genuinely originate from sharing their experiences, and reporting their social, economic & gender injustices. The primary purpose of the colloquium is to bring together primary stakehoders involved in transforming local-based economy to listen to the grassroot level dynamics.

Keywords: unheard voices, social justice, bottom-up approach, transformation, economy  
Venue: University of Zululand, Richards Bay, Science centre and the Sports Ground
Contact details: Prof Unathi Kolanisi, kolanisiU@unizulu.ac.za, 035 902 6003

Purpose is to expose under and post-graduate students to cross-cultural exchange and learn about incidents, prevalence and impact of domestic and/or international migration and mobility for Everyday Social Work Practice and develop a plan to educate intergeneration service users in Sweden and South Africa, while developing Migration and Ubuntu Master degree program MA (MU) collaboration by faculty from both countries is the envisaged long-term outcome/output.

Keywords: Migration, Mobility, Ubuntu, Knowing, Everyday Social Work Practice.
Venue: University of Venda, Social Work Department, School of Human and Social Sciences, Limpopo
Contact details: Cynthia M. Mothamaha Phiri, Cynthia.Phiri@univen.ac.za, Cynthia.mothamaha_phiri@soch.lu.se, 015-962-8293 (office) 065 835 6452 (mobile)

The event will be organized as a seminar aimed at stimulating dialogue between scholars that are interested in research methods, ethics and social transformation. The ‘Rhodes Must Fall campaign’, that started at the University of Cape Town in 2015 and erupted across South Africa, sparked a blistering debate on decolonisation of curricula that paved the way for critical debate about the relationship between power, knowledge and learning. Transformation of higher education calls for pluralism and disruptive thinking if universities are to take on their role in social transformation. One way to dismantle the hegemony of Western knowledge systems is to rethink how research should be done. We seek to initiate a debate on responsible research for social transformation and decolonisation of the curriculum.

Keywords: Social transformation, decolonisation of knowledge, responsible and ethical research. Venue: Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Bellville Campus
Contact details: Prof Penelope Engel-Hills, engelhillsp@cput.ac.za, +27 21 959 6218