Stellenbosch Centre for Critical and Creative Thought

At the Stellenbosch Centre for Critical and Creative Thought (Stellenbosch Thought), critical thought is regarded as deadening if it is not also a creative insurrection. Critical thought is creative world-making and self-making. We are interested in lived actualities. The world, and all the parts that make it up, is approached critically because it can be imagined and made otherwise. As critical African scholars located at Stellenbosch with its colonial and apartheid history, being critical implies being inspired by an ethos of beautiful revolt against oppression in its different guises. To desire to make new worlds, imagine different subjectivities, and generate joyful encounters is for us therefore to be critical. Situated within Stellenbosch University’s Psychology Department, Stellenbosch Thought is shaped by the idea of actual creative living around us and of opening the boundaries of hegemonic psychology to think well beyond the discipline. The Centre is rooted critical psychology as part of critical thought from Stellenbosch, South Africa, Africa, Earth. Yet even though we are psychologists and psychology students, psychology does not have the last word on people’s lives. Central to this feeling for particularities and opening is working with other disciplines others, other thought, other knowledges, other ways of making, other practices. This figuring, border-transgressing work conducted by the Centre, its collaborators and students, is explicitly and imaginatively informed by the idea of doing things in and from our situatedness in the world.

‘Virtually, all cultural anthropologists take it for granted, no doubt, that culture is the basic and central concept of their science. There is, however, a disturbing lack of agreement as to what they mean by this term. To some, culture is learned behavior. To others, it is not behavior at all, but an abstraction from behavior – whatever that is. Stone axes and pottery bowls are culture to some anthropologists, but no material object can be culture to others. Culture exists only in the mind, according to some; it consists of observable things and events in the external world to others. Some anthropologists think of culture as consisting of ideas, but they are divided upon the question of their locus: some say they are in the minds of the peoples studied, others hold that they are in the minds of ethnologists. We go on to “culture is a psychic defense mechanism,” “culture consists of n different social signals correlated with m different responses,” “culture is a Rohrschach of a society” (sic) and so on, to confusion and bewilderment. One wonders what physics would be like if it had as many and as varied conceptions of energy.’ White, The Concept of Culture, American Anthropologist, 1959. Culture is one of the most debated ideas in the social sciences. Under the theme Psychology and Culture, we are interested in this indeterminateness, of psychology as embedded in culture, culture as a shaping influence on people, and culturally situated psychological work. Our distinctiveness is the work we undertake with creatives and cultural innovators, of different kinds and fields. We are interested in critical studies into the usual topics associated with the term culture in psychology, such as shared life, norms, and values. At the same time, graffiti, food, media, Afrobeat, amampiano, and other genres of music, architecture, film, performance and other cultural creations are also of great interest.

Much of the great critical thought on the subject of men, women, or sexuality tends to be conducted outside of psychology. Women, gender and feminist studies, queer studies, masculinity studies, philosophy, literature, and sociology are some of the fields from which seminal work has emerged. Against this backdrop, our Centre offers a space to read transdisciplinarily so as to offer fresh contributions from critical, African-centred, psychology to the study of men, women, and sexuality. We encourage creative contributions to unmaking and remaking gender and sexual subjectivities and relations. We conduct, supervise, and support critical and creative work on a range of topics related to gender and sexualities. The work includes but is not limited to gender relations, motherhood, boys, girls, gender power, Trans identities, women, men, masculinities, as well as sexual identities, violence, body image, and love.

The work conducted under the theme on Psychology and Structures is aimed at offering insights on the mutual influence of minds and the structures in society and globally. The topics include, but is not limited to, politics and economic policies, policies and institutions.

What is the place of technology in the world and in becoming subjects? Psychology and Technology probes the impact that technology and applications have on our lives, in re/shaping the human. The advances in technology, AI, data sciences, and the rise of new and social media in the last few decades have been tremendous. At the same time, technology companies have employed techniques and insights from behavioural sciences to keep eyeballs focussed on their devices and apps. The impact of these advances and media on people and society compel us to devote some of our critical thought to topics related to technology and social media. Our interest in technology is however not as another variable of interest and instead in a counter-psychological approach. Technology is seen as not external to our subjectivity. The human is understood as already profoundly technologically mediated. Language is the original app.

Understanding the making of things like images, furniture, food, music and other objects is at the core of this area of work. Our scholarship and the projects related to this theme focuses on the ‘psychology of making’ and ‘psychology in relation to making’. As psychologists we are interested in the motivations, effects and conditions under which things are made – for instance aesthetically pleasing objects or useful things like a piece of music or children’s park. Much of this work focusses on art or creativity, and thus our endeavours are in constant dialogue with work in the arts in the broadest senses and with particular disciplines (including, for example, music, architecture, performance, literature, and photography), but also disciplines interested in culture such as cultural studies, anthropology, and sociology. You can see the photographic work of members of African Thought Desmond Painter here and Kopano Ratele here.

We collaborate with leading and emerging thinkers, with creative people, and with activist-minded individuals and groups within Stellenbosch University and other South African universities. Working with creatives beyond universities is a vital part of the ethos of the Centre. We continually cultivate new friendships and expand our alliance horizons to include universities as well as other intellectual and creative spaces across Africa and globally.

The Centre has regular and different forms of hangouts between and among staff, students and collaborators. These include spaces for sharing ideas, dialogues, lunch-time gatherings, seminars, and cross-theme meets. These ensure collaboration within the Centre and across the University as well as beyond.

We encourage postgraduate students toward doing psychology differently, critically and creatively approaching traditional psychology topics. The same kind of idea of ‘doing psychology differently’ is applied to other topics that usually do not receive much attention from psychology, for example, photography, housing, corruption, and dancing. Students are urged toward the radical re-embedding of psychological problems within social structures, cultural contexts, and technological environments. A strong sense of collaborative thinking and writing, especially with people outside of psychology and outside universities, is engendered. Prospective, eligible students who wish to be associated with the work of the Stellenbosch Thought can register for MA Psychology (Thesis) or PhD and ask to be put in contact with Professor Ratele. Information to apply for an MA Psychology (Thesis) can be found here. Information to apply for a PhD can be found here.

We have research, creative and social innovation fellows spending time in our Centre. Please keep an eye on calls but you can simply drop us an email to see if we have a space.

Prof. Lou-Marie Kruger

Dr. Anthea Lesch

Prof. Elmien Lesch

Dr. Dale Moodley

Prof. Tony Naidoo

Prof. Desmond Painter

Prof. Kopano Ratele (Head of Centre)

Ms. Mariam Salie

Prof. Ronelle Carolissen