What is it to make space, hold space, be in a space - together?

As an organisation and community, our goal is to foster safer spaces for Black, Brown, trans, queer, feminist, indigenous and otherwise minoritised scholars and creatives. In aspiring to safer (rather than ‘safe’) spaces, we recognise the need for responsiveness, dialogue, adjustment, and growth, as we work towards more enabling, sustainable environments. This asks that we attend with vigilant care to the histories and afterlives of colonial violence - in South Africa and globally - and to ways of being that continue to hierarchise life value, intellectual credibility, and futural possibility in differential terms of race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, class, faith, ability, and age. 

In seeking to foster a community imbued by radical Black feminist, queer and critical love, we hold to the following key values:

Repair

We are committed to redressive social justice and practices of care that counteract the ongoing disregard, dispossession, and wounding of formerly enslaved and colonised people, as well as those subjected to gendered, sexualised, faith-based, ableist, and ageist discrimination (and other forms of exclusionary violence).

Regard

Acknowledging the opportunity our respective differences offer, we celebrate our team, affiliates, and community members as full and complex individuals who deserve to thrive. We commit to acknowledging and respecting gender pronouns and chosen identities, and to fostering mutual respect, recognition, and learning.

Community

Our mandate is to nurture but also share radical, emancipatory research work. We support open-access learning and wherever possible ensure that JIAS materials and events are available free of charge. We also recognise that transformative research work is not produced in isolation, but in creative dialogue and exchange. Consequently, we are committed to fostering generative encounters, conversations, friendships, and collaborations - on an individual, group, and organisational level.

Connection

We operate in a world of others and are accountable for the approaches and practices we adopt. Consequently, we invite feedback and commit ourselves to working through (rather than dismissing) critique. Conscious of perceived power dynamics and other obstacles that may discourage the sharing of accusations or concerns, we recognise the need for additional communication channels such as our anonymous feedback window. Alternatively, contact details for JIAS are available online, as are details for UJ Human Relations and Support Services.

Against rape culture and GBV

We are resolute in our commitment to refusing the normative conditions of rape culture and femicide, in South Africa and globally. We strive to foster conditions in which women and LGBTQIA+ individuals and communities can thrive, holding to the possibility of a world free from heteronormative patriarchy.*

In embracing an affirming, survivor-centric politics, JIAS commits to taking all accusations of intimidation, bullying, sexual harassment and GBV seriously - affording complainants the acknowledgement, respect, and believability.

JIAS’ policy on sexual harassment and GBV aligns with the university’s Policy on Bullying, Harassment, Sexual Harassment and Rape and its Policy on Prevention and Management of Student Sexual Harassment and Rape

Survivor support services

Transformation Division / Gender Equity Unit:
Fhatuwani Ligege: fjligege@uj.ac.za or gender@uj.ac.za
or call: 011 559 4311 (working hours)

Protection Services:
APK 011 559 2555/3400 | APB 011 559 1312/1076
DFC 011 559 6085 | SWC 011 559 5555
(working hours, after hours and on weekend and holidays)

Centre for Psychological Services and Career Development (PsyCaD): psychservices@uj.ac.za I 24‑hour Crisis Line: 082 054 1137

Campus Health:
APK: 011 559 3837, APB: 011 559 1238, DFC: 011 559 6544, SWC: 011 559 5571
(working hours)

CAREWAYS: 0800004770 (for UJ staff)

Employee Relations and Wellness: 011 559 4032

Institutional Office for HIV and AIDS: 011 559 1088 iohainfo@uj.ac.za

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*We are indebted to the work of Pumla Dineo Gqola, zethu Matebeni and other Black African feminist and queer scholars and activists who challenge structures of hetero-normative patriarchal power, and seek to embody the conditions of possibility they envision.