The Cecil John Rhodes statue outside a historical building at Oriel College, Oxford. Picture: Supplied The Cecil John Rhodes statue outside a historical building at Oriel College, Oxford, England. The University of Pretoria is taking part in a multi-national research project looking into such legacies of the colonial era. Picture: Supplied
Image: Supplied
A University of Pretoria (UP) academic who will play a leading role in a well-funded and prestigious global research project on the colonial history of European universities and how the related legacies and heritage should be addressed and curated said she was very pleased and honoured by the award.
The university announced this week that a team that includes one of its staff, Prof Siona O’Connell, has been awarded funding for the project to the tune of more than €4 million (about R83.92 million).
“As a woman academic identifying as 'Coloured', the award is important to me as the project lead at UP. It signals the value of bold intellectual contributions of this often-marginalised demographic.
“This project is deeply personal - beyond the formal academic processes and deliverables. It speaks to the nature of what universities are by going to the heart of their structure and how knowledge is produced. To me, it speaks to the unfinished business of the 1994 moment, and how universities can lead the way in holding each of us to account for our role in this deeply unequal country,” said O’Connell.
Asked about the poignancy of the project beginning this month at a time when South African university communities and society at large were reflecting on the 10th anniversary of the Rhodes Must Fall movement, O’Connell said she, like many at the country’s universities, was affected by the movement and those that came after it.
“Again, this is personal, as in 2015, I raised the question of transformation - or lack thereof - in South African universities, and like so many, did not emerge unscathed. #RMF and #FMF (Fees Must Fall) drew sharp attention to transformation and decoloniality in universities.
“We are looking to shed light on the backstory - the longer historical arc - of the colonial project and how it shaped, and continues to shape, the tertiary education landscape. In this project, the backstory - like that of freedom - remains incomplete.”
The university said in a statement the Colonial Legacies of Universities: Materialities and New Collaborations (COLUMN) project brings together nine academic and cultural institutions from eight countries. Collaboration with partners from formerly colonised countries is at the core of the project, which sees research around colonial university heritage as a unique opportunity to develop close international collaborations based on “rearticulated” power relations.
The project will see UP collaborating with partners from Surinam (Anton de Kom University), the Netherlands (Utrecht University and Studio Louter), Austria (University of Graz), Switzerland (Geneva University), the Czech Republic (Charles University), Italy (University of Bologna) and Denmark (Aarhus University).
"Universities and science, especially in Europe, expanded significantly during the colonial period. Today, the legacy and heritage of this entangled history is encoded in the materiality of many European higher education institutions. Many buildings are named after controversial figures, research collections have some colonial origin, and botanical gardens are silent witnesses of expeditions outside Europe.
"This project will explore the unique and divergent colonial histories of universities and the contested materialities these have produced," said UP.
The project includes partners from Suriname and South Africa as principal investigators in the consortium of researchers. Curators from Vietnam, Indonesia, Mexico and other "decolonised" countries are similarly included as equal partners.
Project leader Gertjan Plets of Utrecht University in the Netherlands said he was glad that initiatives such as the Horizon Europe programme enables scholars to set up a truly global research consortium.
“International collaboration is essential to decolonise scientific heritage and ultimately change the university,” he said.
O’Connell said to work with COLUMN colleagues from around the world was “humbling” and that it was the first time UP’s Faculty of Humanities received a Horizon Europe award.
“For any academic who ventures into international collaborations that are well-funded, the rewards ought to be significant for students. I am driven to recruit, mentor, and financially support postgraduate students - especially women - particularly those who come from slave-descendant communities such as the Cape Flats of Cape Town. It gives me the greatest joy to be able to award research positions to them and watch them excel. I am lucky as it is utterly rewarding to be able to help the next generation of scholars who are committed to social justice, prepare them to take the reins, and shape our future.”