/ 1 August 2002

A year older, and wiser

The Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) only opened its doors last September, and yet it has already become a vital hub of international intellectual activity on the University of the Witwatersrand’s Braamfontein campus.

WISER came into being after the demise of the well-respected Institute for Advanced Social Research. The mandate of the newly conceived institute was to conduct research into the complexities of change — a major challenge, given the seismic transformations South Africa, and indeed the university itself, was undergoing in the wake of the country’s uneasy transition to democracy.

“It was recognised that the university had a social responsibility to produce cutting-edge research into the critical social questions of the day,” says Professor Deborah Posel, first director of the new institute. “How do universities remain relevant to the pivotal questions of the day? There are three key issues: they should conduct research that is socially engaged, addressing critical contemporary issues; coupled with that, there should be a clear assertion of independence; and finally, uncompromising excellence. From the intellectual point of view, that was the mandate from the university to WISER.”

WISER was conceived during a period of widespread rationalisation and restructuring of tertiary education, with research in all areas coming under siege. These very crucial areas of intellectual development were becoming increasingly vulnerable in an atmosphere of cost-cutting and retrenchments that was affecting all universities, technikons and colleges of higher education — and the humanities and social sciences were particularly under threat.

Given Wits University’s privileged background, one might well ask why it was necessary to create a new institute, rather than seeking to fulfil the university’s mandate within one of its many schools and existing research institutes.

Posel argues that the defining quality of WISER in its conception was that it was to be an interdisciplinary institute — whereas other institutions of the university were constituted with more narrowly focused areas of research in mind.

As examples of the interdisciplinary way in which WISER is already operating, she cites its collaboration with the Wits School of Public Health on the issues of migration and urbanisation — issues which have no small impact on the demographics of South Africa’s Aids epidemic.

There is also a collaboration with the Wits History Workshop, and various others — including the soon-to-be-launched WISER Writer’s Fellowship, a collaboration with the Wits School of Journalism. Readers will recall that this fellowship first came into the public eye with the appointment of former Mail & Guardian columnist Mark Gevisser and current columnist John Matshikiza as the first recipients of this prestigious award.

The overall aim is to “breach sedimented intellectual boundaries,” by offering fresh approaches to the pursuits of the academy. Thus the writing fellowship, for example, was established to create a space for a deeper dialogue between the academy and what she calls “public intellectuals”.

As its internal mandate, the institute has four primary objectives. Firstly, it aims to produce engaged, independent research that reaches international benchmarks of research excellence. The institute’s five “flagship” research areas are: “Law, Criminality and the Moral Logics of Everyday life”; “Meanings of Money and Cultures of Economic Rationality”; “Rethinking ‘Race'”; “Cultures of Sexuality and Power” (which also explores how these issues impact on the Aids epidemic); and “The Limits of the State”.

Secondly, “the creation of an intellectual hub” where intellectual exchange can be conducted at the highest level. This intellectual exchange will take place both within the university, and in the greater intellectual environment of other universities in the country and further afield. There have already been a number of symposia, workshops, lectures and seminars, largely involving the participation of European, American and Australian-based scholars. But Posel emphasises that the institute’s goal is to deepen its relationships with institutions in the developing world as well — particularly on the greater African continent, from which the South African academy has been largely isolated for several decades.

A third aim is to contribute to the production of a new generation of scholars, in an atmosphere where, through low salaries and poor working conditions, the academy has “lost much of its lustre in recent years”. New opportunities in South Africa’s new culture of instant gratification on the corporate ladder must also have played a part in this decline in interest in academic pursuit.

The institute’s answer has been to establish a programme of doctoral fellowships in which young scholars will be given “an infectious enthusiasm for research” through a close but easy-going involvement in all the work of the institute, and a process of sharing ideas around each other’s specific projects.

It has been the university’s particular objective to stimulate this enthusiasm for academic excellence among young, black scholars. And this aim has been rewarded by the fact that seven of the institute’s first 10 doctoral scholars are black — all of them winning their fellowships strictly on merit, rather than according to any imposed quota system.

The institute’s fourth objective is to invigorate public debate around the key issues of the day — through open seminars, as well as through engaging with spheres of public debate, such as the media, through the WISER Writing Fellowships. The idea is to communicate and exchange ideas with audiences that are not merely academic. And the large number and high quality of applications for the Writing Fellowships alone demonstrates the high level of interest in this kind of engagement that WISER’s initiative has stimulated in less than a year of its existence.

As well as its doctoral and other fellows, WISER has attracted the services of 12 full-time researchers from a number of disciplines. These include world-class researchers also selected through a highly competitive process, and drawn from both the South African and international academy.

If looks are anything to go by, WISER is well on the way to achieving its objective of being not only serious, but also attractive, in the best possible sense. The institute is situated on an upper floor of one of the university’s old, concrete buildings, but has been given a cheerful outlook with bright white walls adorned with various pieces of wire sculpture, installation pieces, and abstract paintings.

WISER could, indeed, be at the cutting edge of a revitalised intellectual life for South Africa.

For more information, visit: www.wits.ac.za/wiser