The launch of the Hub for Decolonial Feminist Psychologies in Africa at UCT has been hailed as groundbreaking by scholars, who said it would be an opportunity for Africans to add an authentically African voice to global research.
Led by Dr Shose Kessi and associate professor Floretta Boonzaier, the Hub was established to create an intellectual space that embraced a decolonial and feminist agenda for psychological research in Africa, and among the African diaspora. Student participation, and ownership, will be central to the hub.
“When we think about universities in Africa, built as a result of a colonial encounter, universities that came on the continent very much imported Western theories. Those theories and disciplines were based on a stereotypical understanding of Africa, and often misrepresent (Africa),” said Kessi.
“The Hub is a space where we are going to do collaborative work with partners and students, a space in discipline and a physical space.
“It is called a hub because we are starting off, but we are hoping it will develop into a fully fledged research centre.”
Boonzaier described the hub as a place that would open up conversations about, and research, the intersections between, race, class and gender.
The body of research that will be undertaken through the hub will cover questions of institutional racism, the identity-related impact of land dispossession, as well as contemporary forms of urbanisation and gentrification.
Kessi said incoming UCT vice-chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng had raised funds to sponsor projects on decoloniality, and they had applied for one of those grants and had been successful.