Keynote at the International Community Engagement Conference- Rhodes University Community Engagement Centre

At the International Community Engagement Conference hosted by Rhodes University, Co-Chair Dr Rajesh Tandon delivered a powerful keynote titled Youth Citizenship, Ecologies of Knowledge and Higher Education: Pathways to Transformation.

Drawing on global movements and struggles such as Occupy Wall Street, Narmada Bachao Andolan, and AIDS activism in South Africa, Dr Tandon reflected on the widening disconnect between community realities and university education systems. He challenged higher education institutions to critically rethink the relationship between reality and curriculum, and between citizenship practice and classroom pedagogy.

The keynote also foregrounded how colonisation has historically operated through epistemicide — the erasure and delegitimization of diverse knowledge systems. Dr Tandon spoke about the role of British universities in the slave trade, the imposition of European languages as the dominant medium of higher education, and the continuing structures through which knowledge is validated today.

In resonance with the conference theme of Reparative Justice, the keynote called for embracing ecologies of knowledge-  recognising multiple modes of knowing through cognition, emotion, and action. Dr Tandon emphasised the importance of lived experiences, oral traditions, stories, rituals, arts, and ceremonies as legitimate and necessary forms of knowledge for building reparative and transformative futures through education.

The session sparked rich reflections on how universities can move towards more just, plural, and community-rooted futures of knowledge.

You can hear the keynote here- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-a9PXKLGEE&t=973s