The University of Cape Town (UCT) has launched a groundbreaking Khoi and San Centre.
Speaking at the launch, vice-chancellor Prof Mamokgethi Phakeng said the centre aims to become the “foremost research centre of its kind, producing research of international standing”.
The centre will foreground erased or marginalised indigenous knowledge, rituals, language and “ways of knowing” of the San and Khoi clans across the university and its communities.
Many of their descendants still live in communities across the Cape Flats, and many are students, staff and graduates of the university. The development continues years of groundwork by academics such as Dr June Bam-Hutchison, who said she was “delighted that the archives — the languages, knowledge and rituals — of those who once lived on the slopes of the mountain were now being made visible through the centre”.