Conference Rationale

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the fragility and interconnectedness of human life. Yet, despite many global moments of reflection, universities quickly returned to pre-pandemic routines, leaving structural inequities and deep dehumanisation largely unchallenged.
At the same time, students, communities, and educators continue to question the meaning, role, and social purpose of higher education.

Universities remain deeply shaped by colonial and apartheid epistemologies, hierarchies, and exclusions. A reparative orientation asks universities to confront these histories, acknowledge their direct or indirect complicities, and imagine more just futures grounded in accountability, reciprocity, and healing. Central to these futures is the wisdom, knowledge, cultural practices, and relational ethics of communities.

Community knowledge – including practices of care, mutuality, solidarity, and Ubuntu – offers powerful resources for rethinking the university. Through relationships of trust, shared inquiry, and co-creation, universities may cultivate humanity in ways that extend beyond economic instrumentalism and toward inclusive, ethical, and socially responsible development.

This conference therefore positions community engagement not as charity or service
but as a reparative, ethical, and humanising relationship that reshapes both the university and society.