Written by Alyce Kapisa
Join me on a journey as I travel to the small town of Makhanda in the Eastern Cape, where members of the Societal Impact Task Team (SITT) within Stellenbosch University’s Department of Biomedical Sciences participated in the 8th annual Rhodes University Community Engagement (RUCE) Conference.
This year’s theme “Community Engagement and the Trajectory of Community-University-Society Relationship: Past, Present and Future Possibilities” set the stage for four days of intensive presentations and panel discussions. We spent the four days running around from one presentation to the next; immersing ourselves in a wealth of information while trying to gain as much knowledge and insight as possible, to be able to pass onto our fellow scientists in our department. Where to even begin on the imparting of this information, I don’t know – but I’ll start with how most research articles start… keywords after our abstract.
Throughout the conference certain keywords emerged repeatedly: community, perception, responsiveness, reciprocal, respect, engaged, transparency, ethics, stakeholders, knowledge building and sharing, Global South and oh, how the list goes on! And with these words and the encompassing theme, we were able to explore so many things that left us with more questions than answers to be honest. As a result, and as a fair warning to all readers, this piece is meant to provoke thought rather than provide answers just as the conference did for those who attended. My goal with this piece, is for all stakeholders in community engagement to seek answers to these questions in their own contexts. Apologies in advance to people who hate question marks, I sincerely tried to limit my use.
A brief note: the conference attendees were from all faculties across multiple different universities both in South Africa and globally, all the topics discussed could be applied in our various contexts. One thing most of us did have in common though, was the fact that we do research that involves our surrounding communities, and that commonality is what sparked some of the most interesting exchanges I’ve participated in. I am relaying it with the mindset of a scientific researcher, but I really encourage anyone in research to try and apply this in their field of knowledge.
Now, to sum up our very engaging four days. The most informative was Day One in my opinion. On Day One, we were treated to a keynote address which touched on one of the most important parts of the whole conference: the definitions, perceptions and connotations of the word community. Professor Andre Keet of Nelson Mandela University, was the first of many speakers to pose the questions of: what does community even mean, who makes up a community and what is the university’s role in the community? Luckily for everyone reading this, I actually do have an answer for these questions that I think everyone needs to keep in mind. Community includes the university and all the staff and students thereof and I think that is a part everyone, including the general public, forget. So, community is the university, its funders and the general public, in our setting of course. These are all the stakeholders in a community. The concept of community is also multifaceted and non-linear. For instance, many conference attendees noted that the image in their mind of a community was not of a middle- or upper-class suburban neighbourhood. Instead, they envisioned a more rural or underprivileged setting. This common narrative about community is limited and does not encompass its full diversity. We need to broaden our understanding of what constitutes a community, starting from a more inclusive perspective. From this I also learned that the university is not meant to serve as an external party, but rather as an internal part of the community that has access to resources that could help the greater community. The university should not be seen as some sort of “saviour” of the community, because that is where a lot of the miscommunication happens when it comes to community engagement. From this comes the conversation of community service versus community engagement. And again, that the people in the university at the end of the day, are also members of the communities that they serve. But does our institutional culture convey that we too are community members or, are we still part of an institution that holds themselves to a higher regard; and sees themselves as removed from the general public? In this context, “general public” refers to individuals that are not staff and students at the university. Interestingly, I’ve noted that we use “community” and not “general public” when engaging in conversation about this particular group of people.
Following the thread of “who is part of a community?” was one of my favourite conversations about the privilege of being in a higher education institution, despite the background you come from. Students and staff alike, may come from places where they previously benefitted from the resources that the university offered, and now that they are part of the university, do they bring in their perspective of how that impacted them? Do they use this perspective to help improve the way community engagement is done? Or with privilege gained, do we change and again forget that we form part of the community? I think a lot of it comes back to how we view ourselves in this relationship. The rest of the day followed on a similar note, with the topics mostly being about transformation, institutional culture, and responsiveness. Everyone is aware of the history of our own institution, but do we know, and are we aware of the cultures that we practice and how they affect the research that we do and therefore the general public? Are we a responsive university? This means: do we react quickly and positively to changes in our environments, criticism and general negativity? Our university has focused so much on transformation but before our institution is transformative, we as individuals within the institution, need to be transformative people. Do we know how to be transformative and how to combine our individual transformations to make a better university?
Days Two, Three and Four continued in a similar vein. We touched on the differences between community engagement and community service and were reminded that community engagement should not be likened to philanthropy. Some topics discussed included:
- The history of community engagement in certain institutions and how far it has come with very specific examples especially in the context of Rhodes University and the impact they’ve made in their local schools..
- How institutions are trying to quantify the real-life benefits of community engagements.
- Self-reflection: why we do it and if we do it correctly.
- The Global South being more than just a geographical location, and how more countries in the Global South should collaborate, learn from each other and develop one another rather than continuously relying on first world countries.
- The importance of indigenous knowledge, especially in the Global South, and going back to our own roots and history to use in the present and future. This linked well to knowledge building and sharing, which is a concept I hadn’t heard of until the conference and one that I am so excited to explore more of.
All stakeholders in a community have different types of knowledge, and it is so important that we all share it with each other, build on our own existing knowledge and develop our community together using our shared and newfound knowledge. We are so used to the word collaboration, but knowledge is the basis of all collaboration, and we need to start seeing that as one of our biggest resources and making sure it is being used to its full extent. To end this, I am going to draw attention to the biggest and most important conversation: what is the point of community engagement especially in your own context? Is it necessary, and why? Who does it benefit and is the act of community engagement reciprocal? Is it a transparent and ethical relationship on both sides? These questions really got all the members of SITT thinking about ways to answer this with the different members of our micro-community. And with all these last few questions that were brought up, we came up with our own to ask not only ourselves, but everyone around us: what is an engaged researcher? Be warned that this question may lead to a scary, but very necessary existential crisis that I recommend all researchers go through before conducting their work. I also think it is a question the other stakeholders can help us answer because they are the ones who need to benefit from us being engaged researchers. A loaded but essential question for community engagement to be as productive for everyone involved as possible. And that is just a taste of how much we learnt over the week.
Is this the part where I say in conclusion, or they all lived happily ever after? No, because we can’t conclude this type of conversation in our space until everyone has fully dissected community engagement and all the baggage (the good and the uncomfortable kind) that it comes with. Only then can our communities live happily ever after. Before then, we have a lot of work to do still. Obviously, we must acknowledge that we have come a long way and can congratulate ourselves for the previous good work we have done. However, the world is ever evolving, and times are changing, and we need to make sure that the work we do is always relevant to the needs of the greater community, and not just ourselves. Just as engagement to be married signifies a commitment to building a life together, community engagement represents a dedication to fostering collective growth and well-being. Let’s make sure that we (and I am referring to all stakeholders) commit to this relationship and put all our efforts into making sure everyone’s needs and wants are fulfilled. Let’s get our happily ever after, we deserve it!
A big thank you to the organisers of the RUCE conference for arranging a variety of thought-provoking discussions for us, we hope to see you again next year! Thank you to Dannie, Nomfundo and Brian, our dedicated members of SITT for learning alongside me. And thank you to Makhanda for the gorgeous scenery, donkeys in the streets, the best milkshakes and sandwiches and for being a very conducive learning environment, we are booking our flights back soon!