CAS - home of decolonisation and ancestral belonging

CAS Precolonial Research Ethics Working Group leader, Kershan Pancham, addressed the university assembly on 1 November outside Memorial Hall (now renamed from the previous 'Jameson Hall'). The assembly was convened to determine the institution’s view on issues such as free education.

In this evidently popular speech, Pancham addressed the issues of 'deep ancestral listening' as part of decolonising the university space. He posed a number of issues for students to think about including the Biko theory of 'blackness' as 'structural' and the still invisible slave burial sites on UCT grounds. How do we overturn colonial narratives and recognise black pain as 'reason'?

He urged students to act against erasure of narratives and to understand gay identities as essential to 'blackness'. Identities and structural economic inequalities are interrelated. Pancham suggested in his public speech that it was indeed at CAS where there was 'ancestral listening' and relevant scholarship and where students are made to feel at home to be enabled to originate pertinent 
decolonial scholarship projects.

Watch the assembly on YouTube: