Centre for
African Studies
The Centre is the longest-established institution of its kind. Re-launched in 2012, it carries a mandate for promoting and supporting African Studies across the various Faculties of the University of Cape Town. The Centre supports a number of programmes, including the African Studies Gallery, the journal Social Dynamics, and a regular programme of workshops, conferences and seminars.
African
Studies Unit
The Unit offers a full academic programme, concentrated at the graduate level but also including some undergraduate courses. Typically, our students are interested in critical, interdisciplinary, Africa-focused scholarship. They are interested in thinking outside of the frameworks of an inherited set of knowledge projects. And they are interested in taking seriously the critical and intellectual traditions of the global south.
Our projects
Land Use and Rural Livelihoods in Africa Project (LURLAP)
LURLAP is a collaborative research project involving researchers and scholars working on land and related fields in Africa. read more
Farm workers and dwellers in South Africa
This research project arises out of identified common interest between the Surplus People Project (SPP) and researchers and students in the Centre for African Studies (CAS) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). read more
The AC Jordan Chair
The AC Jordan Chair in the field of African Studies was established at the University of Cape Town (UCT) in 1993 and is named after Archibald Campbell Mzolisa Jordan who was a pioneer in the field of African Studies under Apartheid. read more
The Trilateral Reconnections Project
The Trilateral Reconnection Project (TRP) is an agreement between the University of The West Indies, the University of Cape Town and Brown University, which calls for student and faculty exchanges and joint research projects between the three universities. read more
African Studies on the African Continent
Communique on the Colloquium on African Studies in Africa read more
Land Reform and Democracy in South Africa
The Land Reform and Democracy in SA: State and Civil Society Dynamics Research Chair puts the spotlight on the land question and seeks to deepen debate around democracy, equity and agency. read more
Curate Africa
Online photographic exhibition curated across several themes, including African cities, place and citizenship, trade routes and religion. read more
Events & Announcements
Conference on: Land, Race and Nation in South Africa
The notorious Natives Land Act of 1913 confirmed in law, the spoils of the wars of colonial dispossession in South Africa. It ushered in a system of territorial racial segregation in the country with white settlers claiming, owning and occupying the overwhelming bulk of the country. The Act demarcated 7,13%1 of the land surface as African reserve territory and strictly prohibited the purchase of land by Africans outside these areas read more
