The Department of Cultural and Political Studies and the Department of Social Science Education and Economic Management Education at the University of Limpopo invites abstract submissions for a conference to be held 16-17 July 2025
KEY SPEAKER
Malesela Steve Lebelo, Azanian Philosophical Society
BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
The History and Politics of the 1980s are no doubt formative of the politics of transition that defines the political settlement of 1990-1994, which brought about a “post-Apartheid” South Africa. The year 2024 marked 30 years since that transition and was the subject of deliberation in a conference hosted by the University of Limpopo (UL). The conference reflected on the progress or/and lack thereof in terms of the redistributive and restorative political and economic justice. Part of the deliberation included a reflection on the political and economic compromises made by the country’s negotiated settlement, which also saw the adoption of the Constitution of the Republic in 1996. The latter declared itself the supreme law of the country. Interestingly, 2024 saw the inauguration of a Seventh Administration after the elections of 29 May 2024, which also vocalised debates about transition and the state of politics in South Africa in 30 years of the democratic dispensation. It is against this background that this conference, using the Freedom Charter and the State of Emergency as political barometers, seeks to deliberate on the historical, political, economic, and social constitutive of the political transition and a reflection on present-day society.
Historically and politically, the year 2025 marks exactly 70 years since the adoption of the Freedom Charter on 26 June 1955 by the Congress Alliance. Despite contestation around the Freedom Charter, it was viewed as an important historical and political document that signified a watershed moment in the history of the liberation struggle and, over the years, continued to re-emerge as a rallying document in the popular struggles of the 1980s, a decade of ‘ungovernability’ in South Africa.
The year 2025 also marks exactly 40 years since the first State of Emergency on 20 July 1985 in South Africa. The 1980s South Africa was in flames, riddled with violent protests and escalated insurgency from all borders, including the ones inside the country. Rural uprisings in the desiccated countryside of South Africa’s Bantustan homelands were met by violent demonstrations within the sprawls of South Africa’s peri-urban townships. The State responded by declaring a State of Emergency, something usually declared when the welfare of a nation is so threatened by “war, invasion, general insurrection, disorder, natural disaster”. It gave the Prime Minister of South Africa, PW. Botha could rule by decree through the South African Defence Force (SADF) and the South African Police (SAP).
The conference will be structured around the following topics:
- Why did the Congress Alliance decide on the Kliptown meeting of June 1955?
- How did the apartheid regime react to the Kliptown meeting?
- How were the submissions collated and subsequently leading to the drafting of the Freedom Charter?
- What happened to the original copies that made up the Freedom Charter?
- Where is/are the original copy(ies) of the Freedom Charter?
- What impact did the Freedom Charter have on the mass mobilisation of the oppressed people in South Africa?
- What are the various interpretations of the Freedom Charter?
- Are the 10 Clauses of the Freedom Charter still relevant in today’s politics?
- What is the meaning of the Freedom Charter to the present-day social, economic, juridical, and political reality?
- What were the political upheavals of the 1980s that led to the State of Emergency being instituted?
- How did the above and underground political organisations respond to the State of Emergency?
- How successful was the imposition of the State of Emergency?
Finally, the conference also invites papers that will concern themselves with the liberation of the university at large and consider the relationship and tensions that dwell between the university and the society in which it exists.
CONFERENCE SUB-THEMES
- Assessing the anti-imperialist struggle legacy of Pan-Africanism and African Nationalism.
- Relevance of African Nationalism/Pan-Africanism for contemporary African challenges: postcolonial imperialism, education, multicultural citizenship, governance, nationalisation, privatisation, inequality, migration, racial prejudice, xenophobia, etc.
- Differences in philosophical outlooks between African Nationalism and Pan-Africanism, Continentalism vs Sub-saharanism, identity and philosophy in the Maghreb and East Africa about Africa.
- Marxism vs Pan-Africanism, class vs race, liberalism and its discontents, the philosophical assessment of conquest and constitutionalism.
- Decolonising the curriculum: theories, challenges, and experiences of teaching.
- The intellectual biographical examination of any major contributor to the struggle for liberation of African-descended peoples.
- Economic perspectives assessing income inequality and general inequality in society.
- The Constitution (act 108 of 1996): Its promises and failures.
- Gender and racial inequalities.
- The Exile mission.
- Violence in schools in the 1980s.
- Bella Bill and its meaning to an egalitarian society with the education sectors.
- The Expropriation of Land Act and its implications for the broader project of land reform.
GUIDE FOR AUTHORS
The abstract(s) of no longer than 250 words describing the general thesis of the paper, identifying the problem to be examined and the method and approach the presentation will adopt should be submitted. Abstracts for proposed panels should follow the same instructions with the addition of a single-page description or motivation of the proposed panel and how its papers hang together. Panels can have 3–6 members. Panel proposals with all their supporting documentation should be sent in a single email by the convenor of the panel.
Abstract(s) must be sent to: mojalefa.mankgero@ul.ac.za cc Thabang.dladla@ul.ac.za
CONFERENCE REGISTRATION FEE
| Postgraduate Students/ Adjunct /Associate Staff (African): | R500.00 |
| Postgraduate Students/Adjunct/ Associate Staff (International): | R1000.00 |
| Tenured Faculty (African): | R1500.00 |
| Tenured Faculty (International): | R2000.00 |
In exceptional cases, there will be a waiver granted for postgrads and adjunct staff who request it. Please make enquiries to Thabang.dladla@ul.ac.za (Subject Line: Fee Waiver Request)