Kweya returns to Kenya

Prof Isabel Hofmeyr and Prof Susan van Zyl with some of the participants of the writing and methodologies workshop series which they facilitated at Egerton University on
12-19 July, 2013

After a year at UCT, starting in July 2012, APC postdoc fellow Dishon Kweya has now resumed his post as senior lecturer in the Department of Literature, Languages and Linguistics at Egerton University in the Rift Valley of Kenya, about 160 km north of Nairobi.

'I have always been awed by the scholarly rigour in South African universities since the time I first came to South Africa for my PhD research at the University of the Witwatersrand,' says Kweya. 'And I am convinced that my university has a lot to benefit from collaboration with UCT and other leading South African universities.'

To this end, he has, for the past two years, been helping to organise annual visits to Egerton University by South African scholars to facilitate workshops for postgraduate students and academic staff. This year, he helped to facilitate a visit by scholars Prof Susan van Zyl and Prof Isabel Hofmeyr of the University of the Witwatersrand, who ran writing and methodology workshops at Egerton during their eight-day stay.

'This is an area in which Egerton and most universities in East Africa suffer a deficit, hence the dearth of cutting-edge scholarly output,' says Kweya, who arrived back in Kenya at the beginning of June just in time to make the final arrangements for the intensive workshop series, which began on 12 July 2013. He hopes that it will be possible to discuss the possibility of future collaborations with UCT scholars along similar lines.

'My time at UCT was exactly what I needed for the next stage of my scholarly and teaching career,' he says. 'After a PhD, it is very easy to insulate oneself within one's discipline, especially in places where the comfort zones are not disturbed. Working with the APC group gave me the opportunity to interact with people from diverse disciplines to which I hadn't until then given much thought. At no moment did I feel more inadequate than listening to seminar presentations by art historians. Even history in which I thought I was comfortable sounded increasingly alien as I listened to more seminars at APC, HUMA and at UWC. It became apparent to me that I needed a rigorous shake-up to find my place and participate in the debates in the numerous forums of the APC and UCT as a whole. But looking back I feel certain that the experience is exactly what I needed for my academic development.'

Kweya is currently writing a book tentatively titled: Ethnicity as Tricksterism: The Making of Postcolonial Nyole identities, the idea of which was refined during his time as an APC fellow. Most memorable was the experience he gained from the discussions of the book writing and publication group of which he was the convenor. 'At these meetings, I was able to hone my ideas of the book and book writing itself, so when complete, my book will owe a lot to the APC,' he says.

'At one point at the beginning of my stay I started to doubt the wisdom of having taking up the fellowship with the APC, when I could have been so much more at home with the familiar, but that moment was quickly behind me. Certainly, my colleagues at APC are unforgettable for the way they made me feel at home. Carolyn, Anette, Katleho Glen, Alex, Mbongiseni, Victoria, Grant, Jae, Chris, and many others made my time with the APC meaningful and memorable. Thursday was perhaps the best day because of the coffee and a bit of welcome 'noise' in the otherwise very silent and scholarly Jon Berndt Thought Space. As a result, I am now a regular coffee drinker!'

He expresses his gratitude to the UCT Research Office team for their invitation to the weekly PERC seminars, where he gained 'enormous experience that will positively impact on my research and professional responsibilities. But my biggest gratitude goes to Carolyn Hamilton for the fellowship offer at APC and to NRF for the sponsorship. I look forward to coming back to make presentations at APC seminars in future,' he says.