New Centre to address diversity issues
- By Vivienne Rowland
It is quite significant that Wits opens a Centre for Diversity Studies in the same year in which South Africa celebrates 20 years of democracy, says Professor Melissa Steyn, Director of the Centre.
Steyn spoke at the official opening of the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies on Thursday, 20 February 2014, which took place at the Wits Art Museum amidst attendance by more than 150 people.
The Centre is aimed at building capacity to meet the challenges of diverse societies, especially post-apartheid South Africa and is based in the Faculty of Humanities. The Centre will further its cause through interdisciplinary postgraduate education, public engagement and research.
“It is symbolically significant that we are launching this Centre in the year when we celebrate 20 years of democracy. Every day we see examples of people being marginalised. Every generation has a responsibility, a historical obligation of telling what has been passed on to them, examining and doing the kind of introspection and analysis that will enable them to pass on a better society to their children,” says Steyn.
Social activist and analyst Nomboniso Gasa addressed the guests and said she has the greatest confidence that the Centre is going to tackle relevant issues facing today’s society.
“I believe that you understand how big your agenda is. I believe that your commitment will inspire us, to commit to a process and a struggle, because living with diversity is actually a struggle. We are living with contradictions within ourselves and within our community. I wish you great strength and a thick skin,” said Gasa.
Steyn is also newly appointed as the South African Research Chairs Initiative Chair in Critical Diversity Studies at Wits by the National Research Foundation.
“The Chair’s aims are to theorise contextually grounded understandings of diversity, difference and otherness, as these become salient through the current operations of power; to research how these dynamics are “at work” empirically in specific sites and locations; and to develop knowledge and materials that address South African needs,” said Steyn.
A former researcher at the Universities of Stellenbosh and Cape Town, Steyn said she is happy to be working at Wits. “I am really privileged to work at Wits, in Johannesburg, on this project, to be able to do this work here, in this city, in this context, of creating consciousness, and helping talented young people to take these issues very seriously”.
The opening of the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies was preceded by a programme of events including the opening of the exhibition Queer and Trans Art-iculations: Collaborative Art for Social Change by the two well-known visual activists Zanele Muholi (Mo(u)rning) and Gabrielle Le Roux (Proudly African & Transgender and Proudly Trans in Turkey). The exhibition ends on 30 March 2014.
For more information on the Wits Centre for Diversity Studies visit http://www.wits.ac.za/wicds