The big picture
The sustainability of human life and livelihoods the world over are under threat from ecological degradation and extreme poverty. Humanity’s over-exploitation of fossil fuels and other natural resources has resulted in climate change, with negative consequences for those at the wrong end of skewed patterns of resource distribution.
Universities in developed and developing countries are responding to these challenges by establishing collaborative centres of research and teaching excellence. It is not possible to comprehend what has been called the world’s poly-crisis by following the traditional approach of academic disciplines operating separately from each other.
At Stellenbosch University (SU), a group of academics and researchers from a range of faculties and departments, as well as from South Africa’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and the Sustainability Institute (SI) started co-operating on these issues in 2005. This led to the establishment of the TsamaHub.
The body’s name is derived from the centrality of the notions of transdisciplinarity, sustainability, assessment, modelling and analysis in its work, and the fact that it operates as a focal point at the University. Quite appropriately “tsama” is also the common name of a wild watermelon found in Southern Africa’s driest parts. It has traditionally been an invaluable source of survival to people and animals.
Prof Mark Swilling, one of the project leaders, explains: “Complex global sustainability challenges relating to poverty, energy, water, waste, food security, biodiversity, urbanisation, conflict, gender, values and identity cannot be understood and addressed using mono-disciplinary approaches. Sustainability is a transdisciplinary challenge.”
The TsamaHub is located in the Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences, but it collaborates with 17 departments in eight faculties, and with the University’s Centre for Renewable and Sustainable Energy Studies and Centre for Studies in Complexity. It also optimises the interface and flow of intellectual, human and financial resources between the University and its external partners.
Groundbreaking approach
The TsamaHub’s unique Doctoral Programme in the Transdisciplinary Study of Complexity and Sustainability kicked off in January 2010 with an intake of 12 postgraduate students.
“We need new ways of knowing and producing knowledge that will make it possible to develop an integrated understanding of complex interrelated social, ecological and economic systems.
Our PhD programme provides participants with the unique experience of learning beyond disciplinary boundaries,” says the TsamaHub’s programme manager, Mr John van Breda.
“Professionals have traditionally been trained at PhD level to specialise in very particular problems, not to answer a question like how do you build a sustainable world. We aim to change that,” says Prof Swilling.
The academic strategy of the TsamaHub has been coupled to a practical partnership between SU and the Stellenbosch Municipality, jointly led by the Rector and the Mayor, to tackle the concrete problems of the town.
Like most urban areas, Stellenbosch suffers from the consequences of water and energy shortages, overflowing waste water treatment plants and landfills, housing shortages, poverty, polluted soils and rivers, and land conflicts.
The Stellenbosch Rector-Mayor Forum is aimed at making Stellenbosch a sustainable university town by putting the University’s expertise in a variety of fields at the service of the municipality. The Social Cohesion Initiative, which as a coalition of community and business stakeholders, is also closely involved.
Hope for all
“The work of the TsamaHub has helped the University turn Stellenbosch and the surrounding area into a living laboratory to generate relevant and useful knowledge,” says Prof Russel Botman, Rector and Vice-Chancellor.
“The golden thread running through all of this is tangible hope for all our people.”